Russia

Trump’s Rambling, Lie-Riddled Rant About Mueller and Russia Exposes His Panic and Fear

Posted by on May 9, 2019 at 12:44 pm. 2 Comments :

On Thursday morning Donald Trump held an impromptu press conference to announce an initiative related to drug pricing disclosures. But as often occurs at any Trump affair, it wandered off topic and wound up miles from reality. Trump’s rambling discourse (video below) was further evidence of his severely declining mental state that is stressed by anxiety, consumed by paranoia, and fraught with hostility toward his perceived enemies.

Trump Fear

The diversions littered throughout this spectacle included utterly false claims that Trump had provided Puerto Rico Rico with $91 billion dollars in aid following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. It was only $11 billion. He also repeated his frequently told lie that tariffs on China are paid by China. They are actually paid by by American companies who pass those costs on to American consumers.

Trump defended his son, Don Jr, who was just subpoenaed by the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee, by saying that special counsel Robert Mueller had exonerated him. He didn’t. And Trump recklessly accused former Secretary of State, John Kerry, of having violated the Logan Act, and called for his prosecution. That’s just another example of Trump using his Justice Department to persecute his political opponents, the way dictators are known to do.

However, the most strikingly deranged portion of this babbling tirade was Trump’s surreal portrayal of what happened in the aftermath of the release of the redacted version of Mueller’s report. He began by misrepresenting the special counsel’s team as being comprised of “seventeen or eighteen very angry Democrats who hated Donald Trump.” It was actually led by Mueller, a lifelong Republican, who was appointed by a Republican Acting Attorney General, who was appointed by Trump.

Following that, Trump claimed that no one was ever more transparent than he has been. This is despite his recent declaration that he is suppressing, via executive privilege, the entire Mueller report, denying Congress the right to interview anyone associated with the affair, and opposing all attempts to have witnesses testify before Congress, including those unser lawful subpoenas.

Trump further misrepresented what took place by claiming that Mueller was unfit to conduct the investigation because of “conflicts” he had with Trump. Those alleged conflicts were fabrications from the diseased mind of a paranoid president. He first stated that he and Mueller had some sort of bad business relationship. And it went downhill from there:

Trump: Mueller’s no friend of mine. I had conflicts with him. We had a business dispute. We had somebody that is in love with James Comey. He like James Comey. They were very good friends. Supposedly best friends. Maybe not, but supposedly best friends. You look at the picture file and you see hundreds of pictures of him and Comey. And with all of that and other things – he wanted the FBI job. I don’t know if anybody knows that.

First of all, the business dispute Trump refers to was a minor incident when Mueller resigned his membership at Trump’s National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, because he no longer lived in the area and wasn’t using it. That hardly qualifies as a business dispute.

Secondly, Trump’s assertion that Mueller was “in love” with Comey is laughable. Especially after Trump confessed that he was in love with Kim Jong Un. What’s more, there is absolutely no evidence that Mueller and Comey had anything other than a work relationship. They were not even casual friends. Comey testified before Congress that he had dinner once with Mueller, but had never been to his home, didn’t have his phone number, and didn’t know the names of his kids. Trump has told this lie before, embellishing it with claims that there were hundreds of pictures of them “hugging and kissing.” No one has ever found a single one.

Trump did interview Mueller for FBI director, which shouldn’t surprise anyone since he previously held that job for twelve years. But if Trump is insinuating a conspiracy, then Rod Rosenstein must have been in on it, because he picked Mueller to lead the special counsel probe. If there was a conspiracy, it didn’t work very well because Rosenstein later stood quietly behind Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, has he brazenly lied about the contents of Mueller’s report. But here’s where this really gets weird:

Trump: Here’s what happened. The report comes back, it’s perfect it’s beautiful. There’s no collusion. Nobody even talks about collusion. You know, I haven’t heard the word Russia in a long time [he talked to Putin six days ago]. There’s no more talk about Russia What happened to Russia. The Russia witch hunt – they don’t talk because it was so on collusion. Which by the way is by far, that’s the big deal.

Let’s just set aside the fact that everyone is talking about Russia. Now Trump is ecstatic about what he claims is the result of the investigation that he also claims was a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” He describes as “perfect” and “beautiful” a report that he insists was the work of an allegedly conflicted and embittered enemy who hates him.

It appears that Trump can’t keep his rattled attention focused long enough to decide whether he is the victim of an evil cabal, or the joyful winner of “total exoneration.” All of this is on public display every time he steps in front of a camera. And for some reason, the press is still reluctant to say what is so glaringly obvious: Donald Trump is totally nuts and unfit to serve.

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

Fox News Shills Parrot Trump’s False and Peculiar ‘Praise’ of a New York Times Campaign ‘Spy’ Story

Posted by on May 3, 2019 at 1:00 pm. 1 Comments :

For most his presidency, Donald Trump has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for failing to understand the simplest matters that unfold in current events. Either that or he is deliberately distorting reality to conform to his preconceived delusions. This is evident in everything from his confused grasp of the economy, to his embarrassing belief that stealth fighters are actually invisible.

Fox News, Spying on Trump

On Friday morning Trump took another step into the cognitive void. He posted a tweet that offered backhanded praise to the New York Times for an article about the FBI’s investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia. But his comprehension of the Times article was indicative of a diseased mind:

It was thoughtful of Trump to suggest that the Times should get a Pulitzer Prize. Especially since they already got one this year for “an exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trump’s finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges.” But Trump’s tweet missed the whole point of the story. He also missed the headline, which his tweet falsely quoted as “Details effort to spy on Trump Campaign.” The actual headline was “F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016.”

Notice that what Trump called a “spy,” the Times referred to as an “investigator.” And that’s precisely how Fox News helpfully sought to elaborate on Trump’s glitchy characterization. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends did a segment on the story by the Times that led with a gleeful Steve Doocy completely misrepresenting it (video below):

“So it’s a big story in the New York Times. Remember a couple of years ago when Donald Trump said the government was spying on him? Turns out the New York Times, in this morning’s edition, right here on the front, we’re gonna show you the headline, ‘FBI Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet with Trump Aide in 2016.'”

First of all, can anyone explain why Fox put that MAGA sign in the graphic, other than as a free advertisement? More to the point, Doocy went on to describe the story as involving Trump’s foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, who the FBI was indeed investigating to ascertain his links to Russia. Doocy even acknowledge that, although he repeated Trump’s rhetoric about spying, which is not what happened. But co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed and then went full conspiracy crackpot by accusing the FBI of “covering their tracks” due some to imaginary exposé that Kilmeade wouldn’t reveal.

In reality, this was part of an investigation that had already begun. It was initiated after an Australian diplomat told the FBI about a meeting he had with Papadopoulos in a London bar. Papadopoulos revealed that he had access to damaging information about Hillary Clinton obtained by Russian hackers. That meeting took place in May of 2016. The meeting referenced in the New York Times story took place in September of 2016, several months later. So, since the investigation was already in progress, what exactly were Trump and Fox News so excited about? The Times story merely affirms prior reporting that Trump’s campaign had unsavory associations with Russia that were worthy of scrutiny.

Trump has been whining incessantly about what he calls a “Witch Hunt” and a “hoax” for much of the past two years. But his contention that he was the subject of spying is ludicrous. When law enforcement assigns officers to engage in surveillance it is routine and legal investigative work, not spying. And in Trump’s case, it was all conducted with strict oversight and lawful warrants issued by independent judges. Nevertheless, Trump managed to twist the Times’ story into something it wasn’t, and then declared some sort of deranged victory.

This is just another sorry attempt by Trump – with Fox’s help – to malign the FBI and American intelligence agencies. That’s something that he has been working hard at because he knows what he is guilty of and, therefore, needs to discredit the police agencies who are protecting the nation from criminals. Criminals like Donald Trump, who also tweeted that he spoke with Vladimir Putin Friday morning. His tweet indicated that they spoke about the “Russian Hoax.”

So now Trump is talking to our enemies about his attacks on American law enforcement? Is he still colluding with Putin to coordinate their stories that there was “no collusion, no obstruction”? Doesn’t he realize that Putin is a subject of the investigation by the FBI, and it’s entirely inappropriate for him to discuss the case with Putin? And given all of that, do we really need any more reasons to impeach Trump?

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

AG Barr’s Bastardization of the Mueller Report Cements His Reputation as a Trump-Fluffing Shill

Posted by on April 18, 2019 at 9:06 am. 3 Comments :

On Thursday morning Donald Trump got just what he wanted when he planted William Barr as his obedient lackey in the Justice Department. Barr held what he called a “press conference,” but was more of public sanitation of Trump’s clear and obvious criminal behavior, much of which was done in full view of the public. This will go down in history alongside the legal mendacity Nixon’s accomplices in Watergate.

Robert Mueller Trump

Much of What Barr said in his remarks was the best evidence that he was being flagrantly servile to Trump. He began by describing the Mueller report as concerning “matters related to Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.” And then he nearly ignored that entirely for the remainder of his remarks. Barr never explicitly mentioned incriminating activities like the meeting between Don Trump Jr and Paul Manafort with Russians in Trump Tower. Nevertheless, he did conclude that “no evidence that any Americans – including anyone associated with the Trump campaign – conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.” How does he square those two facts? Barr doesn’t say.

Barr did bring up the fact that Russians were found to have hacked into the emails of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. But he let’s Trump off the hook by saying that the Mueller report “did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its hacking operations.” That, of course, was never alleged by anyone. What Trump and company did was to aid and abet the Russians in disseminating the product of that illegal hacking. All the while denying that it ever occured.

Barr noted that “Wikileaks then made a series of document dumps,” but he absolved Trump of any wrongdoing by stating that “Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign.” The public evidence to the contrary is undeniable. Trump promoted WikiLeaks’ stolen data over 140 times and said explicitly that “I love WikiLeaks.” Then he later denied this reality by saying that he “knows nothing about WikiLeaks.” Again, that contradiction is another example of his consciousness of guilt.

Barr did address the fact that “the Special Counsel investigated a number of ‘links’ or ‘contacts’ between Trump Campaign officials and individuals connected with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.” But he’s trivializing what were actually hundreds of contacts by dozens of Trump associates. And he cavalierly dismissed those contacts saying that he “did not find any conspiracy to violate U.S. law.” Well, then what else would he call it?

Barr’s “bottom line” was that the report concluded that “the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.” But what he isn’t denying is that Trump and his campaign abetted those schemes by promoting their narratives while pretending they didn’t exist.

Additionally, Barr cleared Trump of obstruction of justice by asserting that there was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” That’s Barr’s conclusion, not Mueller’s. And it ignores all of the evidence to the contrary, including Trump’s innumerable lies to cover up his activities and even his television confession that he fired FBI director James Comey because of “the Russia thing.”

Proof of Barr’s bias was evident in his comments that Trump “was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” How does Barr know that Trump was frustrated and angry? He never testified. And as for his having “a sincere belief” that he was the subject of “presidential harassment” (as Trump calls it), that’s a brazenly subjective view that reveals prejudice on Barr’s part.

What’s more, Barr claimed that “the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation [and therefore had no] corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.” It’s absurd to say that someone who refused to be interviewed had fully cooperated. And Trump’s corrupt intent was evident nearly everyday in his tweets that maligned Mueller and his team as virtual traitors who were acting with purposeful deceit to stage a coup against Trump. Additionally, it’s impossible to ignore Trump’s witness tampering with both threats and the dangling of possible pardons.

This release of the redacted Mueller report, and Barr’s obsequious presentation of his deceitful version of facts, produces more questions than it answers. And the fact that Trump required this improper defense by the Attorney General just makes him look more guilty. There are still some sixteen other investigations of Trump in progress that encompass potential crimes related to his campaign, his inauguration, his businesses, his sexual affairs and assaults, and his presidency. So if Trump thinks this is “Game Over” as he tweeted following Barr’s press conference, he is not only wrong, he’s downright delusional.

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

Signs of Dementia? Trump Bashes the Mueller Report He Hasn’t Read But Says Exonerates Him

Posted by on April 6, 2019 at 12:05 pm. 2 Comments :

One of the things that Donald Trump is most fixated on is his insistence that he is superior in every way to anyone on any matter. (see the video below) He has the best words, knows more about war than his generals, and gets the biggest crowds. That’s a textbook symptom of Malignant Narcissism, which many psychiatric professionals are convinced he suffers from. And those experts are worried that he’s getting worse every day.

Donald Trump

On this particular day Trump is providing ample evidence that his mental condition is seriously deteriorating. But he will be pleased to hear that he’s more nuts than any president in American history. In his regularly scheduled Saturday tweetstorm, the President fired off a flurry of utterly inane and contradictory tweets that should make all Americans concerned. The subject was a familiar one: The Russia Witch Hunt Hoax. He simply can’t control his outbursts about this, and for good reason. The more we learn, the more it’s apparent that Trump is guilty of both conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Even the senior legal analyst at Fox News agrees with House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff, that there is evidence of Trump’s collusion and obstruction.

In his latest rage-tweeting fit, Trump was tightly focused on the credibility of special counsel Robert Mueller and what he might have concluded in his final report. Even though he has a biased Attorney General that he planted in the Justice Department, Trump is obviously still frightened and desperate. But his complaints are a hodge-podge of whining, self-vindication, and insults.

The most striking part of this Twitter rant is that Trump is flailing in all directions at once. He admits that he hasn’t read the report, but also asserts that it exonerated hm. And while he’s basking in what he considers a decree of innocence, he also maligns the Mueller, the author of the alleged decree. What follows are the five tweets (so far) that Trump posted with the intention of clearing himself, but only making things worse:


Really? A hoax that has already produced hundreds of indictments, several guilty verdicts, and the disclosure of dozens of contacts between Trump and his associates that they all lied about prior to eventually admitting it.


Indeed, no one outside the top ranks of William Barr’s office have read the report. So no one can credibly assert that they know the conclusions of a 400 page report based on a biased four page summary.


First of all, the asset forfeitures from just Paul Manafort alone more than pay for the entire investigation. And if Trump is so concerned about what the Democrats think, why doesn’t he just release the full report that he says proves his innocence?


Here Trump is trying again to shift blame to Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that she had no impact on what Mueller concluded. And he takes another swipe at the team of investigators that he says cleared him.


What must never happen again is for America to elect a president who was so obviously tied to Russian agents and oligarchs for his political and financial benefit.

The spectacle of Trump being so fiercely critical of an investigative team that he claims proved his innocence is more than curious. It’s alarming from the perspective of his mental health. He is a man who both viciously condemns Mueller and pays tribute to him as having “acted honorably.” He’s like a Nobel prize winner who insults the Nobel committee as corrupt idiots for awarding him the prize. And having someone with that degree of mental illness running the country is absurd and dangerous.

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

And for your entertainment (?) pleasure, here are “24 Things Nobody Does Better Than Trump (According To Trump).”

Trump is STILL Colluding With Russia (and Fox News) to Deny Putin’s Election Interference

Posted by on March 28, 2019 at 9:36 am. 2 Comments :

It’s been four days since the Mueller Report has NOT been released – only the four page cover up by Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. In that short span of time the right-wing media has been furiously crafting a brazenly false narrative that imagines that Donald Trump was exonerated even though Barr’s letter explicitly denies it and the American people don’t buy it.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

Included in the campaign to vindicate from Trump are demands that the media apologize for accurately reporting about Trump’s crime-riddled administration. Which is ironic since it’s Trump who should be apologizing to special counsel Robert Mueller. For more than two years Trump has engaged in reckless character assassination, accusing Mueller of being a corrupt, dishonest partisan on an illegal witch hunt.

What’s more, the media’s MAGA Martinets are also calling for the President to actually escalate his war against the First Amendment. And perhaps the new king of anti-free press hysterics is the Fox News host of their alleged business channel, Stuart Varney went on an extended rant (video below) that proved nothing except for how valuable psychoactive pharmaceuticals could be if certain unhinged TV yakkers were taking them. Varney began his tirade by saying that:

“Now is the time for a presidential counterpunch. President Trump is good at this. Have a go at him and he’ll come right back at you, big time. Now is the time to counterpunch the media. For two years they’ve let their hatred show. I used to soften that word and say they have contempt for the President. No no, they hate him.”

Isn’t “contempt” actually strong than “hate”? And does Varney really believe that Trump hasn’t already been punching at the press with his Stalinist-inspired denunciations of it as “the enemy of the people” and “the opposition party”? He continued:

“For two years they’ve indulged in a orgy of hatred that colored absolutely everything. For two years they preened themselves, assuming the moral high ground. They’re the elite. They’re above the rest of us. They told us the President of the United States was a Russian agent. They told us he was a traitor. They breathlessly reported the most outrageous statements. They gave themselves prizes. Listen to this. It’s from the Pulitzer Prize awarded jointly to the New York Times and the Washington Post. I’ll read it.”

“For deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.”

Varney then mocked this tribute as referring to leaks to the press by former FBI director James Comey, and the false allegations against Hillary Clinton for allegedly funding the infamous Steele dossier. What’s peculiar about this is that Varney is attacking the Pulitzer awards for their recognition of reporting on the “Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election,” not the accusations that Trump and his criminal associates conspired with Russia.

Russia’s efforts to illegally influence our election have been documented and affirmed by everyone from the U.S. Intelligence community to the Mueller report, according to Attorney General Barr. But this rabid rundown by Varney is denying that the election interference ever occurred. And Trump posted this video on his Twitter feed. Which can only mean that he is, once again, denying Russia’s involvement in tampering with the election. In that way Trump is still colluding with Russia by taking their side, absolving them of guilt, and making it easier for them repeat their crimes in 2020. Vladimir Putin must be ecstatic.

And Varney wasn’t through. He wrapped up this atrocious gift to our enemies in the Kremlin by lavishing adoring praise on Trump and lashing out again at the media:

“The counterpunch has already started. Good! The Trump campaign has sent a letter to news outlets telling them to employ quote ‘basic journalistic standards’ when booking guests who have made outlandish and false claims. Way to go Mr. President.”

For the record, that letter to TV news outlets was pretty funny. It called on them to refuse to book any guests who had proven themselves to be repeated and unrepentant liars. It singled out politicians like like Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Adam Schiff. But it more accurately described people like Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose absence from the airwaves would make them decidedly more trustworthy.

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

Trump’s Lies are Crushed By Senate Intel Vice-Chair: ‘There’s Plenty of Evidence’ of Collusion

Posted by on March 3, 2019 at 2:35 pm. 0 Comments :

Donald Trump has been stuck in a frantic and tedious loop of whiny denials for the past couple years. It consists primarily of him impotently proclaiming his innocence with regard to his nefarious associations with Russian operatives in an effort to steal the 2016 presidential election. For the most part his factless proclamations have only served to make him look more guilty.

Mark Warner, CNN

Among his most persistent citations of innocence has been a repeated reference to remarks by the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr. Last September Burr told reporters that he had not seen any direct evidence of collusion or conspiracy with Russia on the part of the President. Note that he did not say it didn’t happen, only that his committee had “no hard evidence” of it. But that was enough to trigger Trump into making multiple identical tweets on the subject. It began on Sep 12, 2018, and continued on Feb 7, 2019, and Feb 8, 2019 and Feb 9, 2019 and Feb 10, 2019 and Feb 22, 2019 and Feb 25, 2019.

Some of these tweets were Trump unleashing his standard “Witch Hunt” rants, and others were retweets from the likes of Sean Hannity. But they all said exactly the same thing incorrectly quoting Sen. Burr: “No Collusion!”

Well, on Sunday morning Trump’s favorite proof that he was a squeaky clean paragon of virtue fell apart. Sen. Mark Warner, the Vice-Chair of the Intelligence Committee appeared on CNN’s State of the Union and explicitly contradicted Trump’s distorted version of events (video below). His remarks could not have been more clear:

“Anyone who says there’s no evidence of collaboration – there’s plenty of evidence. […] The notion that there’s no evidence is just factually wrong. Just in the public domain there are literally reams and reams of evidence of Russian outreach to Trump officials and clear interest from Trump officials, including the President’s own son, welcoming the opportunity to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.”

Warner outlined a small portion of the evidence that was just revealed during the recent House Oversight Committee’s hearing with Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen. He cited three pieces of evidence from Cohen’s testimony:

“One, the fact that Donald Trump and Michael Cohen mislead the American public for months about the whole notion of trying to continue to get a Trump Tower project going in Moscow. […]

“The second is the evidence that Mr. Cohen put out that he was in the presence of Donald Trump when Roger Stone called indicating that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange from Wikileaks, indicating that Wikileaks was about to drop a bunch of very damaging information about Hillary Clinton. […]

“And finally we have this whole question wherein Mr. Trump knew about the meeting in Trump Tower that included Don Jr, Jared Kushner, the campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Clearly a meeting that was not about Russian adoption, but was about the idea of turning over dirt on Hillary Clinton.”

For good measure, Warner’s counterpart in the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, spoke on the same issues on CBS’s Face the Nation, saying that “there is both ‘direct evidence’ and ‘abundant circumstantial evidence’ of collusion with Russia.” He elaborated:

“They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son, Don Jr., and there is overt acts in furtherance of that. That is the meeting at Trump Tower and all the lies to cover up that meeting at the Trump Tower, and apparently lies that the president participated in.”

So this should put an end to the fallacy that there is no evidence against Trump for conspiracy with Russia. Quite the opposite is true. There are mountains of evidence. And that’s even the position of the Vice-Chair of the Senate committee that Trump is so fond of citing on his own behalf. But don’t expect this to end Trump’s plaintive wailing that he’s innocent. When has reality ever interfered with his determination to disgorge obvious lies to shield himself from the consequences of his criminal behavior?

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

Lying Trump Shill Sarah Sanders Gives Solace to Domestic Terrorists and Russian Conspirators

Posted by on February 22, 2019 at 1:11 pm. 3 Comments :

It has been several days since the arrest of Christopher Hasson, a domestic terrorist who compiled a cache of weapons and ammunition with the intention of murdering Democrats and journalists. But Donald Trump has still said nothing about it, even though he has commented on the Jussie Smollett case, 6G communications technology (which doesn’t exist), and a remorseful “ISIS wife” who wants to return to her home in the U.S.

Sarah Huckabee-Sanders

In the absence of any comments from the President, reporters asked his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, if she could provide any insight into Trump’s feelings on the matter. This lead to an exchange that was purely pablum for Deplorables:

Reporter: Is there any plan for the President to maybe tone down his rhetoric, and do you think this contributes to these sorts of extremists getting these ideas?
Sanders: I certainly don’t think that the president at any point has done anything but condemn violence against journalists or anyone else. In fact, every single time something like this happens, the president is typically one of the first people to condemn the violence and the media is the first people to blame the president. We should all join together and start condemning the violence whether it’s against members of the media, whether it’s against Democrats, Republicans, any person in this country. That is unacceptable, and that is why every time it comes up we have been consistent and repeatedly said that we condemn violence in all forms.

The first notable part of this robo-reply is that it didn’t mention Hasson or his plot to commit mass murder. Sanders pointedly did not condemn him or make any statement to deter others from conspiring to commit the same atrocities. She simply generalized the horror and pretended that it’s a problem for both sides of the political aisle, although the data shows that right-wing domestic terrorism is far more prevalent and on the rise.

What’s more, Sanders’ claim that Trump hasn’t “done anything but condemn violence” is provably false. In fact, Trump has encouraged violence at his cult rallies, telling people to “knock the crap out of” protesters, and not to worry about it because “I promise you I will pay for the legal fees.” Trump also praised Rep. Greg Gianforte, who was convicted of assaulting a reporter, saying that “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type.” And of course, Trump’s repeated assertions that the media is “the enemy of the people” are unambiguously incitements to violence, particularly of the sort aspired to by Hasson and committed against the Capital Gazette of Maryland.

During the same press avail, Sanders was asked about the media reports that special counsel Robert Mueller might be wrapping up his investigation and what Trump’s thoughts were about the pending report. Here is the question and Sanders’ response:

Reporter: You were saying a minute ago that there was no need for the campaign to collude with the Russians, but there have been so many indictments. There have been convictions. And there were so many contacts with the Russians. How do you balance that?
Sanders: It’s real simple to me. The President was far and away the better candidate. He had a better message and he outworked Hillary Clinton. And that’s why he’s president. He didn’t need to, nor did he, collude with the Russians. Pretty simple.

Notice what’s missing in Sanders’ reply? Pretty everything that was asked about in the question. Sanders said nothing about the indictments, convictions and numerous contacts with Russians by many of Trump’s closest associates and family, all of whom lied about their activities before being confronted with evidence that forced the truth out of them.

The result of Sanders’ remarks are not inconsequential. By failing to specifically condemn Hasson and anyone else who would seek to emulate him, Sanders is implicitly condoning those actions. Why does she find it so easy to universally condemn innocent refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. as criminals, rapists, and drug traffickers, but cannot denounce actual right-wing terrorism? And by refusing to address the facts surrounding Trump and his nefarious relationships with Russia, she is giving permission for our foreign adversaries to continue to undermine our democracy.

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

What both of these failures to stand up for American principles and sovereignty demonstrate is the tendency by the Trump administration to act against the interests of the United States. In some circles that is referred to as treasonous. At the very least it reveals a suspicious leaning toward some self-interest on Trump’s part that benefits our enemies. And that’s about as solid a justification for impeachment that you’re ever going to see.

This Just In: Trump finally addressed the Hasson matter, but only after he was asked by Hallie Jackson of NBC News. His answer is unbelievably disgusting. He called it “a shame.” WTF? It’s a shame when your kid cheats on a math test. A terrorist plotting mass murder is an atrocity. And Trump’s assertion that he hasn’t been fully briefed a week after the arrest is undoubtedly another lie.

Trump Tweets ‘Thank You MSNBC’ with Video that He Deceitfully Edited to Clear Himself of Collusion

Posted by on February 12, 2019 at 7:31 pm. 2 Comments :

It isn’t often that Donald Trump will offer praise to any TV news network other than his pals at Fox News. In fact, he generally denies that he ever watches anything else. His Twitter feed is filled with examples of his live-tweeting whatever he’s watching on Fox. But somehow he finds out what the others are saying about him and whines about it for days. That’s when he isn’t smearing them in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.”

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

But on Tuesday Trump saw a segment on MSNBC that warmed his shriveled heart. Host Hallie Jackson was interviewing NBC News intelligence and national security reporter, Ken Dilanian, about the breaking news that the Senate Intelligence Committee had concluded that they had not found any “direct evidence” of Trump colluding with Russia. Trump was so gleeful upon hearing this that he dropped everything and posted the video on Twitter with these words: “Thank you to @MSNBC!”

There’s just one problem. Trump cut off the video while Dilanian was still talking. And what he had to say had a direct bearing on how Trump’s involvement with Russia should be perceived. For instance, Dilanian said that Democrats on the committee never thought they would find “a contract between Trump and Vlad saying ‘Hey, let’s collude.'” And what Dilanian said immediately after the point where Trump cut the video was this (video below):

“The disagreement comes, though, over that pattern of contacts that we’ve all seen and heard about over the last few years. More than a hundred contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians. The Democrats say that those remain highly suspicious and that there’s a pattern here that still raises questions. […] And Robert Mueller still has yet to weigh in. And that’s a big question because Robert Mueller knows things that the Senate investigators do not have access to.”

You have to wonder if Trump would have still thanked MSNBC if he had the courage and honesty to present the full video in context. What’s more, Dilanian also tweeted that “The Senate intelligence committee has not found evidence exonerating Trump, either.” And that’s the heart of the matter. The Senate committee deliberately limited the scope of their investigation to avoid stepping on Mueller’s toes. So their conclusions are not what anyone would describe as, well, conclusive. But they still couldn’t clear Trump af anything, and the final word rests with Mueller.So Trump should not be planning his big exoneration party just yet. However, if he wants to thank MSNBC for anything, perhaps it should be for how they are killing Fox News in the ratings. Thanks indeed.

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

Willfully Blind: Fox News Wonders ‘Where is the Russia Collusion?’ in Roger Stone Indictment

Posted by on January 25, 2019 at 11:32 am. 1 Comments :

The walls continue to close in around Donald Trump and his criminal enterprise. And these aren’t the border walls over which he orchestrated history’s longest government shutdown. On Friday morning one of Trump’s longest known and closest associates, Roger Stone was arrested on seven counts that include lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. Charges that Trump would be wise to study up on.

Donald Trump, Roger Stone

The arrest and indictment of Stone was not unexpected. In fact, Stone himself had predicted it in May of last year. Most observant followers of the Mueller investigation have known for some time that Stone was a target of the probe and that he likely ran afoul of the law. Even Trump acknowledged Stone’s complicity and praised him for clamming up about the case in a tweet that could have been written by an old-school mob boss:

Meanwhile, Fox News immediately went to work fulfilling their mission to shield Trump from any and all criticism. In a series of reports they downplayed any significance of Stone’s indictment, presenting it with exactly the same framing as Trump did in his knee-jerk tweet:

For the record, no one “alerted CNN to be there.” They noticed some unusual activity at the Grand Jury and surmised that an indictment might be imminent, so they sent a crew to Stone’s home in Florida. And you have to wonder which drug dealers Trump was referring to who were treated better than Stone who was released a couple of hours after his arrest. As for the “Greatest Witch Hunt,” it surely is the most successful with dozens of indictments and guilty pleas, some by top officials in Trump’s campaign.

Steve Doocy, co-host of Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox and Friends, was dumbstruck by the charges against Stone. But more importantly, he couldn’t understand how anyone would see any hint of collusion in the charges against Stone:

“When you look at the seven counts from the Grand Jury – obstruction of an official investigation, false statements to Congress, and perhaps witness tampering – once again, where is the Russia collusion?”

Where is the collusion? It’s everywhere. It’s in each and every one of the charges Doocy just itemized. The obstruction of justice is specifically related to Stone’s efforts to cover his involvement in conspiring with the Russia-affiliated WikiLeaks to acquire and publish emails stolen from Hillary Clinton and her team. The false statements to Congress were specifically related to his denials of such involvement. And the witness tampering was also connected to his attempts to intimidate his co-conspirators into keeping quiet about these crimes committed on behalf of Trump.

The position of Fox News is remarkably tunnel-blind, even for them. Some pundits have even said that these indictments are good news for Stone and Trump. Because it’s always such good news to have one of your closest confidants arrested for multiple felonies. The narrative at Fox is that because the word “collusion” wasn’t spelled out in the text of the indictments, that there wasn’t any. But that is a fool’s interpretation considering that each of the indictments explicitly address the criminal conspiracy in Trump World.

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

No doubt Fox’s cult-bound audience will buy into their narrative, as will Trump. But that is a small minority of the population at large, and the more new revelations about the Russia probe come out, the more the American people are turning against him. He is currently sitting at record lows of approval (37%), and even his favorite pollster, the thoroughly biased Rasmussen, has him at 54% disapproval (46% strongly disapprove). So Fox’s viewers are, once again, living in a manufactured world that bears no resemblance to reality. They are going to be shocked when all the facts are finally revealed. Unless Fox claims that they are “alternative facts” and that it’s all “fake news.” Which you can bet on.

WH Dep Press Secretary on Fox News Refuses to Deny Buzzfeed Story that Trump Told Cohen to Lie

Posted by on January 18, 2019 at 12:23 pm. 2 Comments :

Thursday night saw the release of one of the most devastating stories about Donald Trump to date. Buzzfeed reported that Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was directed by the President to lie to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. If confirmed, that would be an airtight case against Trump for suborning perjury and obstructing justice – both impeachable offenses.

Donald Trump

So on Friday morning Trump dispatched his Deputy Press Secretary, Hogan Gidley, to what he surely assumed was the friendly territory of Fox News. However, his interview went skidding of the rails when the Fox co-hosts uncharacteristically asked him some probing questions. In the process, Gidley conspicuously avoided answering those questions and refused to even deny the allegations in the Buzzfeed report. This exchange is going to leave some visible bruises on Trump – and perhaps on Gidley as well after Trump sees it (video below):

Sandra Smith: The story coming from Buzzfeed on the President ordering Michael Cohen to lie…sources two law enforcement officials. This is the headline. Breaking: President Trump personally orders his longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in order to obscure his involvement. How is the President responding to that report this morning?
Gidley: This is absolutely ludicrous that we are giving any type of credence or credibility to a news outlet like BuzzFeed. They are responsible, totally and completely, for the release of a discredited, disproven, false dossier. And now the author of the piece that you’re talking about went on air this morning and said he couldn’t corroborate any of his own evidence. He ran it anyway. This is quite frankly the problem with the press and why the President continues to call them ‘fake news’ repeatedly. There is nothing in that piece that can be corroborated.

First of all, notice that this reply was not a denial. Also, Gidley is incorrect that Buzzfeed was responsible for the infamous Steele Dossier. They simply published it after it had already circulated through the White House and the Department of Justice. And he’s lying as to the dossier being disproved. Nothing in the Dossier has been proven false, while much of it has been confirmed.

Furthermore, the Buzzfeed author didn’t say that he couldn’t corroborate his story. He only said that he didn’t see the corroborating documents, a point that Fox’s Bill Hemmer made saying that “I think the way it was characterized – the reporter did not see specifically see the evidence, but relied on one or two sources that they had trusted to this.” Gidley fumbled in an attempt to form a coherent reply and settled for just saying that “That’s not news,” and resorting to Trump’s catch phrase about “the fake Witch Hunt Russia investigation.” So Hemmer pressed him to give a more direct response to the original question about whether Trump ordered Cohen to lie:

Hemmer: You’re saying the President did not tell Michael Cohen to do that?
Gidley: I’m telling you right now this is exactly why the President refuses to give any credence or credibility to news outlets. Because they have no ability to corroborate anything they’re putting out there. Instead they’re just using innuendo and shady sources.
Hemmer: That was not a denial of my question.
Gidley: No. But the premise is ridiculous.

Once again, Gidley evaded the question. And even after Hemmer called him out on it explicitly, Gidley outright admitted that he was not offering a denial. Then he segued to a strategy of smearing his accuser, saying that Cohen is a liar and a felon. That’s true, but what Gidley isn’t saying (or denying) is that Cohen lied under orders from Trump. And then he is given one more opportunity to defend the President and deny the allegations against him:

Smith: But the headline in that report is the President personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations involving that Trump Tower. Is that true or false?
Gidley: Right. But the President’s attorney has also addressed this. I’m not gonna give any credence or credibility to Michael Cohen who’s a convicted felon and an admitted liar.

So Gidley’s response to whether the Buzzfeed story is true or false is “Right.” Really? When the President’s own spokesperson resorts to dodges like “I’m not gonna give any credence,” to charges that the President suborned perjury and obstructed justice, there’s a good reason. And it’s usually because the story is true. But let’s not be too hard on Gidley. After all, his boss couldn’t even deny the allegations in his response on Twitter:

For as long as Trump has been under investigation for what he calls “this Russia thing,” he has behaved exactly the way you would expect a guilty person to act. The same is true for his defenders in the White House and the media. So there’s no reason to expect them to act any differently now. And judging by this pathetic performance by Gidley, they aren’t. With each passing day, and with each new revelation, it becomes increasingly clear that Trump is headed for prosecution and impeachment. And it can’t come too soon.

UPDATE: The Special Counsel’s office has issued a statement saying that “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony, are not accurate.” This statement doesn’t identify what precisely they are disputing, but it does say that it is specific, rather than applying broadly to the article’s main points. And Buzzfeed’s authors and editor-in-chief stand by their reporting.

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