Planned Parenthood

Trump and Fox News Seek to Deflect from Michael Cohen Testimony By Accusing Democrats of Infanticide

Posted by on February 27, 2019 at 10:33 am. 6 Comments :

On Wednesday morning the long anticipated testimony of Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, began before the House Oversight Committee. His prepared opening statement revealed that he intends to provide both testimony and documentary evidence that Trump is “a racist, con man, and cheat.” This has predictably triggered Trump who retweeted an absurd comment that did nothing but expose his flagrant fear of the truth.

Fox News, Laura Ingraham, Planned Parenthood

The fear of Cohen’s testimony has also infected Trump’s sycophantic defenders at State TV (aka Fox News). But their strategy for diverting attention away from the hearing has devolved into one of the most repulsive and dishonest series of accusations ever made, even by the low standards of the Trump era Republican Nationalist Party.

The onslaught began the night before the hearing with Fox’s primetime host, and devoted white supremacist, Laura Ingraham. In a segment that featured a chyron saying that the “Left Wants to Destroy Everything Traditional,” Ingraham practically drooled while asserting that “”Hitler, just like Planned Parenthood, practiced and defended mass extermination.”

So it’s Ingrahams’s position that individual women who choose to exercise their Constitutional rights regarding difficult health decisions are the equivalent of a murderous dictator who purposefully engaged in genocide? And this is the issue that Ingraham needed to raise on the eve of the Cohen testimony? Clearly her intent was to inflame a hostile fury among Fox’s viewers with the hopes of inciting an anger that would cloud their perspective of the pending hearing. And she wasn’t alone.

The following morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends broached the very same topic with the help of Trump’s White House counsel, Kellyanne Conway. And even though the subject of the segment was spelled out in the chyron reading “Michael Cohen Testifies on Capital Hill Today,” Conway unleashed a searing assault on Democrats that was completely false and defamatory:

“[Democrats] are for infanticide. They are for late-term abortion, taxpayer funded abortion, mid-term pregnancy abortion, sex selection abortion – when you don’t want another daughter, fine – just find out the sex of the baby and then exterminate it. Guess what? Now they’re for post-birth abortion.”

None of that is remotely true. However it is provocative and incendiary and intended to whip up a hysteria among the Deplorables watching Fox News that would shove aside any real discussion of the Cohen hearing. But these attempts to suppress any leakage of the news from the hearing only affirm just how terrified they are of the truth getting out. It’s a tactic that drips with fear. And it will work pretty well on Fox News viewers. Unfortunately for Trump, that is an ever-shrinking sector of the population.

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

Fox News Exorcist Tucker Carlson Exposes the Witches of the Democratic Party, and He’s Serious

Posted by on October 13, 2018 at 11:03 am. 1 Comments :

As the midterm election gets closer, Fox News is rethinking their programming strategy. Whereas they used to air all of Donald Trump’s cult rallies in full and uninterrupted, they are now skipping them in favor of their regularly scheduled propaganda. The White House says that they are going to “look into” this betrayal by their State TV division.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson

Apparently the lower ratings and loss of ad revenue was hitting them where it hurts. Plus, by foregoing the live show they can selectively edit clips from Trump’s public tantrums to remove the most embarrassing parts. That leaves them free to embarrass themselves with the juvenile ravings of their Lunatic Fringe Players in Fox primetime.

Chief among the cast of Fox’s unreality circus of Trump-fluffers is Tucker Carlson. His show has become the official mouthpiece of America’s white supremacists. He spends most of the hour with a curious expression on his face that is part confusion and part disgust for his victimized guest.

However, on Friday evening, Carlson managed to sink to a new level of absurdity with a segment attacking Democrats – and particularly women – as practitioners of the dark arts. The discussion was marginally about opposition to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. But there was a much more sinister tangent that Carlson felt compelled to explore. His theme for the night was that “The party that conducts witch hunts also conducts witchcraft.” (video below)

“The question now is, is Kavanaugh’s powerful legal mind strong enough to withstand the forces of witchcraft? It’s a real question now. A coven of self-described witches in New York is planning a rally next week to put a hex on Justice Kavanaugh. You can buy a ticket to attend the ceremony for ten bucks. A quarter of that goes to Planned Parenthood to help them continue to fund their human sacrifice rituals.”

Let’s just set aside Carlson’s crass and offensive attack on Planned Parenthood as standard right-wing assholiness. What’s really important here is that Carlson has broken the liberal coven conspiracy wide open. No wonder Fox News has stopped covering Trump’s Kool-Aid parties live, when they have probing investigations like this to report. And lest you think that this is just some comic relief on Carlson’s part, note that he called it “a real question” and later said that “I think it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard. And by the way, what if it’s real? I’m serious!“

With Trump’s public appearances becoming tedious affairs that the public (and Fox News) is tuning out, and Kanye West is the best hope the Republicans have for exciting their base, they are resorting to desperate tactics like this to avoid a bloodbath on November 6th. It’s such a dimwitted strategy that you have to consider the possibility that it was a witch’s spell that compelled them to pursue it.

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

Trump Whines Because ‘Democrats Are Smiling’ – No, They’re Laughing at You, Loser

Posted by on March 26, 2017 at 1:37 pm. 4 Comments :

The failure of Donald Trump and the Republican Party to pass their anti-ObamaCare bill is still stinging. Maybe a bill that would cancel health insurance for twenty-four million people was never a good idea. It had a pitiful seventeen percent approval rating in recent polls. Consequently, the prospects for its passage were dim from the start. But that didn’t sway the President and his party who are more focused on cutting taxes for their wealthy pals than helping average Americans.

Donald Trump

Having had a couple of days to think about, Trump is still peeved that his incompetence has been displayed to the world. So naturally he is blaming everybody else. In another of his morning tweets the President lashed out at those he feels betrayed him:

First of all, Democrats are smiling across the country, not just in D.C. And it isn’t just Democrats. All Americans who appreciate having access to affordable healthcare are glad that the GOP bill never got off the ground. Secondly, it wasn’t the House Freedom Caucus or the Heritage Foundation that doomed the bill. It was the short-sighted thinking of Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who thought they could muscle through sham legislation that achieved none of what they promised. Despite their public pronouncements, they never intended to insure all Americans. They never tried to hold costs down. And they never sought bipartisan consensus to attract Democratic support.

Trump’s tweet exhibits the petty vengefulness that is the hallmark of his flawed character. He’s attacking his closest allies because they weren’t a hundred percent obedient. Heaven forbid he should accept any responsibility for his own political fiasco. What’s more, he’s lamenting that Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare were saved. According to most polls, both are supported by large majorities of the population. They would certainly regard saving them as admirable, not lamentable.

Trump’s disconnection with the majority of the American people, and even his own party, is unusually vast. He appears to have a severe case of ideological tunnel-blindness that has warped his worldview. And by announcing that on Twitter he drew a response from the online community that puts him in his place. If he’s really interested in why “Democrats are smiling” here are a few of the reasons provided by twitterers:

Trump’s arrogance and inability to accept defeat continue to alienate him from most voters. It’s a big part of the reason he has the most unfavorable ratings of any president before him. His response to having been rebuked by the his congressional colleagues, and the voting public, is to hope that ObamaCare “explodes” and causes great harm to innocent people. That’s not leadership. That’s the response of a vindictive narcissist whose only concern is the feeding and welfare of his ego.

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

FOX NEWS POLL: Trump Liked Less Than Bernie Sanders, Planned Parenthood, and ObamaCare

Posted by on March 16, 2017 at 4:32 pm. 1 Comments :

The sad saga of America’s most unpopular new president ever continues to sink to unprecedented depths. Donald Trump’s support exists within a narrow realm of alt-right bigots and the diehard GOP (Greedy One Percent). This administration repeatedly fumbles and embarrasses itself with poor policies and even worse execution. The result is that the American people are getting fed up with his incompetence and lies.

Donald Trump

On Thursday, Fox News, Trump’s favorite news source and official White House Ministry of Propaganda, released a new poll. The results may be a surprise to the President who expects blind loyalty and unwavering adoration. On most questions related to Trump and his agenda, the people were decidedly dissatisfied. Beginning with the foundational question of approval, respondents snubbed The Donald bitterly. Here is the ranking of what they regard as most favorable:

  • Bernie Sanders: 61%
  • Planned Parenthood: 57%
  • Obamacare: 50%
  • Mike Pence: 47%
  • Donald Trump: 44%

So the registered voters in this survey prefer a Democratic Socialist to Trump by 17 points. They also prefer Planned Parenthood, who he has promised to defund. And worst of all, from Trump’s perspective, the Affordable Care Act that he has obsessively ranted about repealing is more popular than he is. Did I mention that this is a Fox News poll?

In addition to these devastating results, the poll’s respondents have also wearied of his Twitter fetish. Fifty percent disapprove of his tweeting, with another 32 percent wishing he would be more cautious. And his most cherished policy pursuits rank at or near the bottom of the public’s list. For instance, when asked what one accomplishment would make them most happy their ranking was the following: Create jobs: 33 percent. Destroy ISIS: 23 percent. Cut taxes: 10 percent. Put Constitutionalists on the Supreme Court: 9 percent. Repeal and replace Obamacare: 7 percent. Reduce federal regulations: 3 percent. Build a border wall: 3 percent.

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

This is what passes for a mandate from the delusional president who still thinks he had more people at his inauguration than President Obama did. It’s the sort of deranged thinking you would expect after hearing him accuse his predecessor of wiretapping him. Trump is incapable of recognizing how much he’s despised by the nation that voted in greater numbers for his opponent. And this poll reinforces the cognitive break that Trump has with both the political landscape of America – and reality. It’s only a matter of time before Trump lashes out at this poll for promulgating “fake” news. Did I mention that this is a Fox News poll?

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.

Vile Fox News Audience Reacts To Shooting At Colorado Planned Parenthood

Posted by on November 27, 2015 at 2:31 pm. 23 Comments :

Once again, the people who watch Fox News are demonstrating their appalling lack of decency and, ironically in this case, respect for human life. News reports about an active shooter situation at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs are still somewhat vague as to the shooter’s motives and the status of victims. There are confirmed reports of police officers wounded by gunfire, and citizens are virtually trapped in nearby shops as they await a conclusion.

[UPDATE: The gunman was captured alive and taken into custody. The investigation is ongoing. But none of that alters the atrocious nature of the comments by the Fox News audience.]

In the heat of this live crisis the Fox News website is hosting some of the most nauseating responses imaginable. They run the gamut of hateful rhetoric from anti-choice extremism (“Too bad the abortion doctor and the nursing staff weren’t all killed.”) to overt racism (“I know this isn’t PC….but n***gers are just plain bad news.”). Never mind that there is little information about the shooter or his motives (he has been identified in one report as a white male), the Fox News audience is focused entirely on their inbred hostilities toward minorities, women, and President Obama, whom some are accusing of setting this up.

For these cretins to be celebrating this domestic terrorism and the potential loss of life being caused by another madman with a gun is particularly loathsome considering they regard themselves as pro-life. But it isn’t surprising as they have a long record of similarly disgusting responses to news events [See The Collected Hate Speech Of The Fox News Community] If you have the stomach for it, here are some of the responses captured from Fox’s website.

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

Fox News Comments

[ADDENDUM:] This might be a good time to remind people that most national security experts regard domestic terrorism as a bigger threat than Islamic extremists.

Three Degrees Of GOP Crazy: From Benghazi To Planned Parenthood To ACORN

Posted by on September 30, 2015 at 4:21 pm. 13 Comments :

The Republican Party is showing signs of desperation after virtually every attempt to manufacture scandals that they can blame on Democrats has failed. Rather than developing some policy initiatives that might find favor with the American people, or conducting outreach to voter groups, the GOP is diving deeper into unfounded allegations and conspiracy theories. Just yesterday three of their top players engaged in some Olympian nuttiness that produced nothing but embarrassment for their floundering team.

GOP Crazy

Let’s begin this three degrees of separation journey with an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program (video below) by the man projected to be the next GOP Speaker of the House of Representatives. Kevin McCarthy may have thought that he would have a genteel Tea Party with the GOP-friendly host, but he wasn’t prepared for the level of animosity that wingnuts like Hannity have for establishment conservatives. Hannity took McCarthy to task for not having done more to monkey wrench the Obama administration’s agenda. He assailed McCarthy and the House GOP for presiding over budget deficits, funding ObamaCare, amnesty for immigrants, and not shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood. Having been caught off guard, McCarthy carelessly revealed the real, not-so-secret purpose of the House Select Committee to Politicize Benghazi as he tried to defend his record.

“Everybody thought that Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that happened had we not fought to make that happen.”

So McCarthy admitted on TV that the true aim of the Benghazi hearings was to damage Clinton’s reputation and electability. To which Hannity graciously replied “I agree, that’s something good. I give you credit for that.” McCarthy later let slip that he intends to form another pointless select committee on Planned Parenthood. Under Republican control, this congress has held an unprecedented number of flagrantly partisan hearings that have produced nothing of value to their party, much less the nation. The Benghazi investigation has now officially lasted longer than any previous congressional investigation, including the JFK assassination, the Nixon Watergate affair, and 9/11, yet has not found a single bit of evidence of any wrongdoing.

The Benghazi Committee is chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (SC-Tea Party), which brings us to the second degree of separation. Gowdy is also a member of the committee investigating Planned Parenthood for misconduct alleged by an anti-abortion group’s videos that have been proven to be edited in a deliberately deceptive fashion. When it was Gowdy’s turn to question Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards he asked whether she had an understanding of those who oppose abortion. Richards said that she appreciates that “people have a lot of different views on the issue of abortion,” then dismissed the condescending premise saying that Planned Parenthood “trusts women” to make decisions about their own bodies.

That provoked Gowdy to accuse Richards of wanting to “frame the issue” to say that she is “the reasonable one, and those of us who have a contrary position are not reasonable.” Which, of course, she did not say. Gowdy actually conceded that she didn’t say that, but then, using his supernatural power to read minds, told her that “It’s not always what you say, sometimes it’s just what you mean.” But he still could not explain how anything she said could be interpreted to mean what he asserted. It’s plain that he was intent on mischaracterizing her remarks no matter what she actually said.

The chairman of the Planned Parenthood committee was Rep. Jason Chaffetz, which conveniently moves us to the third and final degree of separation. During the same hearing, Chaffetz made some glaring blunders. For instance, he displayed a highly distorted and prejudicial chart that Richards had to tell him was provided by Americans United for Life, a virulently anti-abortion group. But his worst gaffe may have been uttered after the hearing when he went on Fox News to spin the event for the media. In an effort to drive home his slanderous perception of events, he said that “Planned Parenthood is the new ACORN. That’s who they are. Remember when we talked about ACORN? That is Planned Parenthood as far as I can see it.”

You know, he’s actually right. ACORN was an organization that helped people, but was smeared by liars who produced false videos that eventually led to Congress defunding them. Sound familiar? There was never any evidence that ACORN did anything wrong. To the contrary, James O’Keefe, the producer of the videos, lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay a former ACORN staffer $100,000. But, unfortunately, that was after ACORN lost their funding and had to close up shop. Now the same sort of liars are trying to do the same thing to Planned Parenthood despite several state investigations that have already cleared them of any wrongdoing.

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

What all of this adds up to is the brazen dishonesty of a desperate Republican Party trying to invent scandals and exploit their congressional power to bring down their political foes. With McCarthy we have an admission that their efforts are partisan. With Gowdy we see how blinded they are by their own biases. And with Chaffetz a clear connection is made to a previous effort to sabotage an honorable public service organization.

Ironically, the GOP is whining about taxpayers having to pay for Planned Parenthood and women’s health care services, but most Americans support Planned Parenthood. So the real question is why are Americans forced to pay millions of dollars for congressional hearings that are nothing more than partisan witch hunts based on proven lies?

Here is the video of McCarthy on Hannity: