Steve Doocy

The Most Devoted Trump-Fluffers on Fox News Repudiate His ‘Enemy of the People’ Spiel

Posted by on October 30, 2018 at 7:46 pm. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump is losing his grip on the most reliable lap dogs that State TV has to serve up. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends have long been Trump’s goto toadies. Even before he was a candidate for president, he had his own weekly segment on the program called “Mondays with Trump.” And ever since it has been the Fox News show that he has appeared on most frequently when he needed some ego stroking or damage control.

Fox News Friends

The hosts of Fox and Friends rarely have any disagreement with Trump. But on Tuesday’s program there was a surprising rift on a matter that Trump holds dear. His frequent references to the media in language he stole from Joseph Stalin as “the enemy of the people” has become almost as ubiquitous in his public pronouncements as “Make America Great Again, “Lock Her Up,” or “Build the Wall.” So this exchange between co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade is bound to rattle his dentures (video below):

Doocy: So there he is talking about his term, “enemy of the people.”
Kilmeade: I really wish he would lose that term. It doesn’t help anybody. It doesn’t push back on the media that he wants to push on…The press isn’t the enemy of the people.

Kilmeade added that “that broad statement does a lot of damage.” And Doocy joined in saying that Trump “probably feels like they are not doing him any favors, and so he doesn’t like them,” but “are they the enemy of the people? I don’t think so, either.” So even though Doocy tried to soften the blow, they both firmly rejected Trump’s favorite hateful characterization of the press that he despises so much. In fact, Doocy’s soft-serve actually makes the criticism even more harsh because it implies that Trump has only been saying that about the media to punish them for not being more adoring. Which, of course, is true.

UPDATE: Fox’s Martha MacCallum has also condemned Trump’s reckless rhetoric:

“When he points at the press in the back of the room and calls them the enemy of the people, that is wrong,” MacCallum said in a Women Rule podcast interview earlier this fall. “And it exacerbates the situation.” When asked her perspective on the president’s calling the media “fake news,” the host added: “I find it disturbing. I think it’s a mistake.”

Lately Trump himself has tried to walk back his neo-fascist approach to the free press. He now says that he never meant the phrase to apply to all of the media, just the “fake” media. That, however, is typical Trumpian bullshit. Because he also says that the fake media is the largest percentage of the media. How large? According to Trump, “A big chunk, okay? … ‘80%.’”

Consequently, Trump can’t pretend that he’s just singling out a few bad apples. He still wants to malign the whole field of journalism, especially when it doesn’t sufficiently suck up to him. But now he is losing the support of the most glassy-eyed disciples in the Church of Trump. That’s gotta hurt the big Narcissist-in-Chief. Where does he go if he can’t go to Fox News?

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

Trump Mindlessly Parrots Fox News Lies About ISIS Mixing with Migrant Refugee Caravan

Posted by on October 22, 2018 at 12:41 pm. 2 Comments :

One of the most frequent personal observations expressed by Donald Trump is his insistence that he is a bottomless vessel of boundless knowledge. He claims that he knows more about defense than his generals; more about climate than scientists; and more about the law than his army of lawyers. He may be right about the latter considering that Rudy Giuliani is the head of his laughably inept legal team.

Donald Trump Fox News

However, the evidence of Trump’s brilliance must be buried deeper than the Mariana Trench. He is wrong more often than a chimpanzee predicting the stock market. Although it’s hard to know whether his mistakes are due to common ignorance or, more likely, to flagrant lying. And so much of what he professes to know absolutely is just stuff he heard on Fox News, another disseminator of poorly manufactured fabrications. It’s a sign of his acutely shallow intellect that he relies so heavily on the alternative facts of a TV network staffed by proud foes of intelligence.

Nevertheless, that’s where Trump got his latest bit of bullpucky regarding the nearly 7,000 migrants marching toward the United States in hopes of escaping the poverty and violence in their home countries. Trump posted a tweet on Monday morning that was chock full of falsehoods with racist overtones:

Trump is so enamored of his ability to invent cute nicknames for the objects of his wrath that he came up with one for imposing crises. But the “National Emergy” that he’s panicking about is a figment of his overactive imagination. Especially the part about the “unknown Middle Easterners” allegedly mixing in. Trump appears to have absorbed this non-fact from the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. Co-host Pete Hegseth ranted incoherently about the migrant “caravan” in a segment that backed up Trump’s asinine proposal to deploy the military to confront peaceful, unarmed, refugee families. But the centerpiece of this nonsense was the allegation that members of ISIS were infiltrating the marchers (video below):

Hegseth: You got the president of Guatemala saying to a local newspaper down there just last week, they caught over a hundred ISIS fighters in Guatemala trying to use this caravan or other processes.
Steve Doocy: Are we sure that’s true?
Hegseth: He talked to their local newspaper, we don’t know it, it hasn’t been verified. But even one poison pill is too many in a caravan.

Virtually none of that is true. To begin with, President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala didn’t talk to a local newspaper. He made remarks at the Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America, an event whose attendees included Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Secondly, President Morales was not talking about ISIS fighters caught in conjunction with the migrant caravan. In fact, the caravan had not even begun when Morales spoke at the Conference. Thirdly, there is no evidence whatsoever that any apprehensions of terrorists were ever made. And finally, in his remarks Morales said that the alleged terrorists had all been deported, in which case they would no longer be in the country or able to sneak into the caravan. Therefore, no National Emergy.

From that basket of nothingness, the ultra-conservative shills at Judicial Watch published a thoroughly false report that implied that Morales had revealed an ongoing effort by ISIS to clandestinely enter the U.S. by disguising themselves as migrants. That work of fiction was picked up by Fox News, and then blasted out by Trump to his millions of Deplorable Twitter followers. And to reiterate, none of it was true. But that didn’t stop Trump from doubling with another inane tweet:

Let’s just set aside the fact that Congress had drafted a comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform bill, but Trump’s stubborness to compromise killed it. Now he’s imploring his cult followers to “think of and blame the Democrats” whenever they see refugees seeking asylum in America. Note that he doesn’t want you to think of the hardships they’ve suffered, or even the impact on the U.S. by their being granted asylum. He sees this a purely political matter and he’s exploiting these human tragedies to try to offset the expected Republican losses in the upcoming midterm election.

What’s worse is that Trump’s response to this is to threaten to cut off aid to the countries these refugees are fleeing. So the inhumane conditions that led to their exodus will now get exponentially worse and more of them will take the risks to escape. That’s the sort of thinking that can only come from someone steeped in ignorance and hatred. It’s the thinking of television pundits whose expertise is in celebrity gossip. And sadly, it’s typical of what America has been having to tolerate for as long as Trump has occupied our White House.

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

Fox News Guest Dinesh D’Souza Honors the Humanitarian Slave Owners of the Old South

Posted by on October 8, 2018 at 3:50 pm. 3 Comments :

Leave it to Fox News to find the bright side of slave owners. While the rest of the civilized world condemns human trafficking, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends managed to produce a segment that highlighted the freedom loving Confederates on the old plantations of Dixie.

Fox News, Dinesh D'Souza

Co-host Steve Doocy interviewed one of Fox’s favorite shameless disseminators of flagrant lies, confessed felon Dinesh D’Souza. Earlier this year Donald Trump pardoned D’Souza for the federal crime that he had pleaded guilty to. The Fox segment began as an attempt to mock Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for what they asserted was a gaffe. It wasn’t. She tweeted that:

Ocasio-Cortez was replying to a tweet that noted that two recent presidents who lost the popular vote have put four justices on the Supreme Court. Doocy then asked D’Souza “Why does the Electoral College matter,” and “what do you think she was talking about?” D’Souza’s reply began by mansplaining what Ocasio-Cortez really meant (video below):

“Well, first of all, I think she’s confusing the Electoral College with the “three-fifths” laws. The three-fifths laws was about slavery, and it had to do with an argument between the North and the South over representation. Ironically, the North, which was the anti-slavery side, wanted blacks to count for zero because they wanted to reduce the representative power of the slave states. The South wanted blacks to count for a full person. So the three-fifths laws which was usually presented to show that the founders didn’t consider blacks to be fully human, doesn’t actually show that at all.”

D’Souza is almost right. The problem is that he leaves out the fact that the South only wanted to count slaves because it gave the region more clout in the federal government. Slaves would still be denied any rights and considered to be property. The South wanted it both ways: to own blacks like chattel, but count them to increase the political power of their white masters. Then D’Souza swung back around to the Electoral College:

“Now the Electoral College was a different matter. The Electoral College emerges out of this contest between the large states and the small states. Not an antiquated issue. We have that now. We have large states, we have small states. And if we had a system that gave power only to the large states, the small states would essentially be unrepresented. The whole point, remember, the core of our founding is the consent of the governed. So to create the union the founders needed the consent of the large states and the small states. The Electoral College is a part of that arithmetic.”

Once again, D’Souza os only partly correct. Much of the dispute between the large and small states was still a matter of north and south. The population of the North far exceeded that of the South. So Ocasio-Cortez was correct in associating the Electoral College with slavery. What’s more, D’Souza is wrong in stating that smaller states would be unrepresented without the Electoral College. Their representation in Congress would be identical. The only difference would be in presidential elections.

However, that difference has become a useless and undemocratic anachronism. Given the boundaryless mobility of the modern U.S., we should not still be electing the president by states, but rather by voters. There is no coherent reason why the tiny populations of Idaho or Wyoming should have a greater say in presidential elections than the vastly more numerous populations of California or Texas. And it’s fair to say that there are a lot of former residents of Idaho and Wyoming who now live in California and Texas. Should their votes be diluted simply because they moved?

Ocasio-Cortez is right to raise the issue of eliminating the outdated Electoral College. It should have been done long ago. Hopefully her colleagues in Congress join her in that initiative when she gets there in January. In the meantime, Fox News needs to stop hosting racists who talk down to women and demean them personally as incapable of grasping these issues. But then they would have hours and hours of dead air.

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.

Trump’s Press Secretary Has Replaced ‘Daily’ Press Briefings with Softball Interviews on Fox News

Posted by on September 25, 2018 at 12:30 pm. 1 Comments :

On Monday evening Donald Trump’s White House took the extraordinary step of parading its Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, out on State TV (aka Fox News), to whitewash the charges against him for sexual assault. That spectacle only exacerbated his problems by revealing him as awkward and over-coached in his own defense. And it doesn’t help that he was defending himself on the network best known for political partisanship and employing sexual predators.

Fox News, Sarah Huckabee Sanders

However, this tactic on the part of the administration further illustrates just how reliant they are on disseminating propaganda via Fox News. It’s their go-to media fixer when Trump is in trouble or they have some new unpopular initiative to foist on the nation. And in a totally unprecedented course of action, the White House has virtually eliminated the Daily Press Briefing as a means of informing the public about administration activities. They have replaced it with Fox News.

Trump’s Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has held only one briefing so far in the month of September. She held only five briefings in June, three in July, and five in August. That’s one hundred and seventeen days with only fourteen “daily” briefings. This makes it far more difficult for reporters to gather information that the public deserves and is entitled to in a working democracy. Clearly Trump prefers to operate like the dictatorships he so admires in Russia and North Korea.

So the day following Trump sending off his Supreme Court nominee to the happy place for rightist news, he sets up a playdate for Sanders with his Fox and Friends. Sanders joined the “Curvy Couch” potatoes for an extended discussion on how splendidly everything is going in the White House and in America (video below). She stuck up for Kavanaugh, dismissed the controversy over Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, effusively praised her boss, and promoted the upcoming cookbook by Fox co-host Steve Doocy that contains a recipe by Sanders.

This performance is a poor substitute for briefings attended by diverse and independent journalists. Rather, it is an extension of Trump’s determination to turn the White House into a Reality TV melodrama with all the nonsense and artifice that implies. They aspire to lull the American people into a stupor that will be thrilled by the circus-like antics of a Big Brother presidency.

Unfortunately for Trump, just because his cult followers are foolish enough to fall for that, doesn’t mean that the rest of the country will. And even with his reincarnation of Goebbels (former Fox News president, and current White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communication, Bill Shine), Trump isn’t going to find success in dumbing down America’s democracy. He’s only going to make sure that his Deplorables remain utterly and painfully clueless. Just the way he likes them.

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

WTF? Fox News Host Suggests Trump Traded Election Tampering in Secret Deal with Putin

Posted by on July 20, 2018 at 11:21 am. NO Comments :

When Donald Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki he prohibited any media coverage of their discussion. Consequently, the American people have been left in the dark about what he did and said with the Russian dictator he is so clearly infatuated with. We know only what he said in the post-summit press conference, which is mainly that he trusts Putin more than he trusts his own intelligence agencies.

Fox News Steve Doocy

In the days that followed the meeting Fox News has been feverishly trying to mop up Trump’s mess with ludicrous excuses and irrational defenses. They even aired a flagrant propaganda video that was so inept it actually confirmed that Trump is a liar. They really didn’t need to work so hard at Trump’s absolution considering that his followers are blindly loyal cultists who are incapable of thinking anything Trump does is bad.

On Friday morning Fox News floated a new theory about Trump’s omnipotent brilliance and dominance over Putin. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends were engaged in their daily Trump-fluffing when co-host Steve Doocy unveiled how he thinks Trump outsmarted his BFF Vladimir (video below):

“What will be very interesting is if the President sat down with Putin and they had that private meeting on Monday of two hours. Nobody knows what they said, except the translator, who everybody on Capitol Hill and the political left would love to talk to.”

For the record, not everybody on Capitol Hill wants to talk to the translator. Democrats made a proposal to subpoena her, but Republicans voted it down. These are the same Republicans who are threatening to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for not turning over vol;umes of documents in the name of transparency. But I digress. Back to Doocy:

“None the less, it will be interesting if the President said to him, ‘Vladimir, you’ve gotta stop it. You’ve gotta stop with the meddling.’ If he said that on Monday to him and then he shows up, let’s say mid-October, before the midterms, and it’s still going on, what do you think the President would say then?

“He’d say ‘Look, I thought we had a deal here. I thought you were gonna stop it.’ So it looks like, if that were true, the President would have a little chip to play against Mr. Putin. ‘Look, you’re not doing it? I’m not gonna go along with the Ukraine, Israel, Syria, the plans we had made, maybe not so fast.'”

Doocy is suggesting that Trump used election tampering as a condition for agreement to a larger deal. Is he friggin’ kidding? The only consideration with regard to Russia interfering with American democracy is that it is unacceptable, intolerable, and that it must not occur under any conditions. Period. It is not a “chip” to be played in some diplomatic game. The only thing that a responsible president would say is “Stop it now or there will be serious consequences.” Also, how could Putin agree to to stop tampering with our election when he insists that he isn’t doing it?

And as if it isn’t bad enough to reduce the sanctity of our democracy to dealmaking with murderous tyrants, Doocy’s speculation also suggested that, in exchange for leaving our elections alone, Trump would put the status of international crises in Ukraine, Israel, and Syria up for grabs. Everything is apparently fodder in the “Art of the Deal” presidency (a book that Trump didn’t actually write). The welfare of millions of people, including long-time allies, can just be traded away for hollow promises from known liars.

This is just the sort of thing that makes testimony from the translator all the more necessary. And it reinforces the need to prevent Trump from engaging in these affairs behind closed doors where his ignorance and deceit can be exploited and/or concealed. The proposed second meeting with Putin that Trump is seeking should be canceled, or at least chaperoned by reputable adults. Because if Fox News hosts are speculating, in favorable terms, that Trump might trade away America’s democratic security for the welfare of innocent people, then truly any horror you can imagine is possible.

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

Donald Trump, the Reality TV President, Seen Yelling at Kids on the White House Lawn

Posted by on June 15, 2018 at 2:52 pm. 1 Comments :

Fresh from his return from Fantasy President Camp in Singapore, Donald Trump is reconnecting with his friends at home. Even though he already misses his new BFF, Kim Jong Un (who he wants so badly to emulate), Trump tried to mask his sadness by lashing out at old foes in the media, which he regards as “our country’s biggest enemy.”

Donald Trump, Fox News, Steve Doocy

Watching from his bathroom window where he tweets his official presidential pronouncements, Trump saw his pals from Fox and Friends on the White House lawn and went downstairs to play. Unfortunately, he also ran into those meanies from the other news networks who keep insisting on asking him real questions, rather than the tongue baths he gets from Fox News.

In the course of a few awkward encounters, Trump managed to challenge his own record for lies-per-minute. He brazenly lied about the FBi’s Inspector General report exonerating him. It did no such thing. While it found some opinions expressed inappropriately by a couple of agents, it concluded that there was no bias in their work. It also found that all of the errors of judgment identified resulted in harm to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, not Trump’s.

He also lied about his administration’s heinous policy of ripping apart immigrant families. He blamed it on Democratic laws that do not exist. He lied about Paul Manafort, who he said worked for his campaign for only forty-nine days. It was actually 144 days during a critical period where he relied on Manafort to secure him delegate votes at the Republican National Convention.

But he wasn’t through lying yet. He blamed President Obama for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Naturally he wouldn’t blame his buddy Vlad, who he still doesn’t press to get out of Ukraine. And Trump also told a bizarre lie about the parents of Korean war dead asking him to bring back their remains. Those parents, who numbered in the hundreds, would have to be over 100 years old.

Perhaps the most telling exchange occurred between Trump and Fox and Friends co host, Steve Doocy. Trump revealed what is the highest priority of his presidency. In his banter with Doocy he said (video below):

Trump: You have a lot of fun, right? Supposing Hillary got elected instead of Trump. You think it would be so exciting? Your ratings would be way down. [To the camera] Number one show in the morning folks.
Doocy: Well, thank you. In cable news, that’s right.
Trump: Also beyond cable news you’re doing pretty well.
Doocy: We’re doing okay. Thanks for dropping by.
Trump: I like ratings. I study ratings.

So Trump is validating his election because it goosed the ratings for Fox News? And if Clinton had won their popularity would have suffered? That’s literally what he thinks is one of his great achievements. He even brags about his affinity for television ratings and his expertise in the subject. Never mind his prior statements that he doesn’t have time to watch TV because – documents.

It’s good to know that he studies ratings, because he sure doesn’t study legislation, economics, foreign policy, or any other prerequisite for being president. He’s obviously obsessed with his own ratings. He stages bill signings with silly photo ops where he proudly displays his penmanship before the gathered press corps. He frequently boasts about the attendance at his rallies and the ratings for his speeches, even when those numbers are embarrassingly low. And whenever there is a poll that shows him tick up a fraction of a point, he blasts it out to his Twitter followers, despite the fact that he remains in the thirties or low forties, and has never gotten near fifty percent.

This is what happens when a TV game show host with no experience in politics or governing is put in the White House by Russian cyber-spies and domestic white supremacists. Now America must endure until either Congress or the law enforcement authorities succeed in putting him where he belongs: a prison camp where he can make new friends with the same diseased morals that he has.

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

After Manic Meltdown on Fox and Friends, Trump Says He Wants to Come Back Once a Month

Posted by on April 27, 2018 at 1:24 pm. NO Comments :

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result, then Donald Trump is institutionalizing insanity as a standard operating doctrine for his presidency. Throughout his term in office he has stubbornly clung to blatant lies and policy proposals that defy logic or reason, even after he has been apprised of the errors in his alleged thinking.

Fox News, Kellyanne Conway

On Thursday morning Trump called in to Fox News to frantically unravel in a half hour interview – or more accurately, a frothing tantrum – with his fawning Fox and Friends. In the course of the spectacle, Trump admitted that he lied about how long he was Russia; threw his lawyer, Michael Cohen, under a freight train; contradicted his prior claim that he knew nothing about the Stormy Daniels affair; threatened to interfere with Justice Department activities and personnel; declared James Comey guilty of something or other; and lashed out at Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and, of course, the media. He was so deranged that the hosts actually struggled to interrupt his extended outburst and eventually cut him off.

The consensus reaction to the segment from across the media was that Trump was “unhinged,” “shocking,” “bonkers,” “bizarre,” “jaw-dropping,” “unwieldy,” “crazy,” “surreal.” And those were the more diplomatic descriptions. It was so awful that retired Four Star US Army General Barry McCaffrey tweeted that he is “Worried about health of Pres Trump.” Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ attorney, said that “the President should appear on Fox and Friends every morning.” And he just might get his wish.

Trump’s White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, visited Fox and Friends on Friday morning and the subject of Trump’s appearance the day before naturally came up. Ordinarily it wouldn’t be surprising for a paid shill to fiercely defend the President, but under these circumstances it might have been better to let the memory of this public breakdown subside. Instead, Conway doubled down in a bigly way. After conceding that Trump is “a tough act to follow with yesterday’s interview,” the creator of “alternate facts” proceeded directly to her alternate universe (video below):

Conway: The president had a great time bringing his case directly to the American people, as he does on social media and in these bilateral Q & A’s certainly at the south lawn, and in the press pool sprays, and with other interviews. And the president has said that he would like to, perhaps, come once a month and as news breaks.
Doocy: Wait. Come to Fox and Friends once a month? (Giggling and clapping) WOW!
Kilmeade: Alright. Fantastic. That’d be great.
Conway: He said he’d like to replicate that on pretty much a monthly basis. And you know, back in the private sector he was on every week. Every Monday.

Indeed. Trump did have a weekly call-in segment on Fox and Friends, prior to seeking the presidency, called “Mondays with Trump.” It was the launching pad that Fox News provided for Trump’s future political campaign. But after Thursday’s debacle, it’s unfathomable how anyone could suggest that they would want to “replicate” that epic embarrassment. Only in Trump World could someone get a pie in the face, slip on a banana peel, into a pile of manure, with their pants falling down, and think “Gee, we should do this once a month.”

Also during Trump’s interview, he gave himself an A+ for his performance in office. It’s that sort of self-delusion that makes it possible for him and his disciples to pretend that a nationally broadcast catastrophe was a huge PR success. But if he is determined to have a regular gig at Fox again, he should know that there’s a lot of support for him to do that – among Democrats. Go for it, Donnie.

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

Psycho Trump Goes on Fox and Friends to Prove Conclusively that Fox News is State-Run TV

Posted by on April 26, 2018 at 2:02 pm. 7 Comments :

In the past fifteen months Donald Trump has provided abundant evidence that he is an unqualified fruitcake with crackpot tendencies. His mental health has been plausibly questioned by professionals in the psychiatric field. Much of that evidence came straight from his speeches and the few interviews he has given to friendly media. But on Thursday morning on Fox News he really outdid himself.

Fox and Friends

Trump was actually returning to his roots with a call-in interview on Fox and Friends, Prior to seeking the presidency Trump had a regular spot on the program called “Mondays with Trump.” So with this homecoming he should have been expected to feel comfortable with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes who helped launch his political career. The problem is that he may have felt too comfortable.

This was not so much an interview as a half hour of unbridled lunacy, with Trump lashing out at every perceived enemy that came to mind. He blasted Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, James Comey, the Justice Department, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, and, of course, the “fake” news. If he were a transient on a downtown corner spouting off like this he would have been picked up and taken to the nearest psyche ward. It was an unprecedented and frightening spectacle.

The entire segment is worth watching if you have a strong stomach. In parts he admitted to previous lies, like how long he was Russia. He also contradicted a prior statement about his knowledge of Michael Cohen’s hush money payout to Stormy Daniels. In fact, pretty much played the “Michael who?” card by saying that the man who has been his personal attorney for years did very little legal work for him. It took federal prosecutors just a couple of hours for that statement to become testimony in pending litigation. And Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, reacted gleefully to the interview by saying that “I think the President should appear on Fox and Friends every morning.”

Perhaps the loopiest part of this unhinged departure from sanity was when Trump went on an extended rant against the media. It was a sight to behold. Equal parts hostility toward legitimate journalists and unswerving devotion to Fox News. This is incontrovertible proof that Trump and Fox have sworn a blood oath of loyalty (video below):

Trump: The people have to understand how dishonest the news is. And in all fairness to Fox, you guys don’t always treat me great. But you treat me fairly. It’s not like Fox is perfect for me. They’re not. They’re tough. But at least it’s fair. When you look at some of the others, you look at CNN, they’ll have a council of seven people, and of the seven people, every one of them is against me. I’m saying where do they even find these people?
Kilmeade: I’m not your doctor Mr. President, but I would recommend you watch less of them.
Trump: I don’t watch them at all.
Doocy: That makes it easy.

Trump thinks that Fox News is tough on him? No wonder he won’t be interviewed by anyone else. He’s frozen with fear of real questions that would require intelligence and thoughtful analysis to answer. That’s why he has not had a solo press conference in over a year. And he hasn’t given an interview to an unfriendly network in nearly as long.

It’s startling that he thinks that CNN’s political panels are all anti-Trumpers. Apparently he missed the sycophantic stylings of Jason Miller, Paris Dennard, Jack Kingston, Kayleigh McEnany, Ken Cuccinelli, Mike Shields, Ben Ferguson, etc. I’m also saying “Where do they even find these people.” And it’s cute that Brian Kilmeade suggests that Trump watch less of CNN and, presumably, more of Fox. But Trump seems to be way ahead of him. However, his assertion that he doesn’t watch CNN at all flies in the face of his own comments.

Trump: I watched last night, I tell you why. I watched leakin’, lyin’, Comey last night, and I hated to do it. You know, one of the reasons people say “You’re still lookin’ good, Mr. President. How do you do it?” Well, one of the things I’ve been able to do, which is something I never thought I had the ability – I would always watch – when I was – frankly now I don’t have time for two reasons: There’s too much, and I don’t have time.

Who is telling Trump that he looks good? That’s just cruel. But it’s interesting that Trump has two reasons that he doesn’t have time to watch CNN, and one of them is that he doesn’t have time.

Trump: But I would watch, whether it’s good or bad, I would always watch. I have an ability – I don’t watch NBC anymore. They’re as bad as CNN. I don’t – and by the way, I made them a fortune with The Apprentice. Think of that one.
Doocy: Your alma mater.
Trump: No, but I made them a fortune. You would think that these guys would treat me great. I made them a fortune, so they treat me horribly. And they treat me falsely.

Trump seems to believe that if the entertainment division of a media corporation earns money from his program, the news division is obligated to report only positive stories. Like everything else in Trump’s life, he thinks he can just buy the kind of coverage he wants. And the Fox News hosts didn’t disagree with him.

Trump: But just one thing, I don’t watch things that I can put it out of my mind. And I never, ever thought that that would be possible. And you know what that does? It keeps you on the ball. It keeps you – you keep your sanity. And it works very well. But last night I did watch a liar, leaker and his performance, by the way, was horrible.

Somewhere in this word salad of Trumpian blathering he thinks he represents a sane man simply observing the media. Or not doing so, as he is now insisting. He even expects people to believe that he can put negative news out of his mind. And if this interview is supposed to be an example of that, he really is out of his mind.

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

Fox News Covers the March For Our Lives By Fixating on the One Parkland Student Who Supports the NRA

Posted by on March 24, 2018 at 12:50 pm. 3 Comments :

On Saturday there was a historical, nationwide demonstration in support of gun reforms and protecting the lives of America’s children – and adults too, for that matter. The demonstrators represented a broad swath of the American public, including Democrats, Republicans, young, old, NRA opponents and members. Millions of marchers turned out for this protest in 800+ cities, with more than half a million in Washington, D.C. alone.

Fox News

It is inspiring to see the passion and determination of the young people who are the catalyst for this movement. Many of them are students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the site of a shooting that took the lives of seventeen students and adults. Their efforts are having a bigger impact than most of the previous attempts to force our ineffectual congress to act on behalf of the majority of their constituents rather than the National Rifle Association and their campaign bribes.

But leave it to Fox News to deliberately distort the public discourse on these critical issues. While most other news networks are reporting continuously and live from demonstrations around the nation, Fox News “reporters” are remaining in their studios and delivering infrequent updates and interviewing opponents of those marching.

One of those opponents is Kyle Kashuv, a Stoneman Douglas student who supports the position of the NRA. That’s fine, and it’s his right to have and express his opinion. But Fox News is plastering their airwaves with this kid who represents a tiny minority of his peers – and the nation. Apparently Fox News couldn’t find any other kids who share his opinion, so they’ve been inviting him on repeatedly and hyping his appearances without interviewing anyone whose views are more consistent with the majority. For instance:

It can hardly be called “fair and balanced” to promote the views of a single individual whose views are decidedly outside of the mainstream. Yet Kashuv has been featured on just about every Fox News program throughout the day. That includes Donald Trump’s favorite show, Fox and Friends, where Kashuv and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes whined about his not being included on a recent Time Magazine cover (video below). NOTE: There were only five students on that cover so many others, including prominent movement leaders, were not in that photo. That fact notwithstanding, Fox’s Steve Doocy had the answer for why Kashuv was allegedly snubbed:

Doocy: I know why you weren’t included. I think, and according to what I’ve read, you support the Second Amendment. And the people who were featured on the cover have a different political point of view.
Kashuv: Well it’s clear that the people on the cover are pushing for gun reform. And they’re pushing for they don’t want to see weapons of war on the streets, like the AR-15. I mean, on the march itself, the march’s website, they listed how they want to ban AR-15s and I don’t agree with that.

First of all, the advocates for gun reform are not against the Second Amendment. They want the sort of common sense regulations that apply to other items in the Bill of Rights. Secondly, Kashuv reveals his own absurd position by saying that he doesn’t agree with those who want weapons of war off the streets. So he wants them on the streets?

They went on to discuss the role of the NRA in this debate. Kashuv was adamant that people who were pointing their fingers at the NRA were not helping to solve the problem. But he concluded by saying that:

“We can have all the legislation we want, but if the legislation isn’t actually being enacted or going through or doing what we should be doing, then what’s the point of legislation.”

Fox’s Pete Hegseth complimented Kashuv on making “a great point” and, in fact, he did. But what neither of them seem to grasp is that the reason legislation isn’t going through is because of the hold that the NRA has on weak, mostly Republican, politicians. You cannot have this debate without observing the toxic interference of the NRA.

This is how Fox News is filling its schedule on the day of the March For Our Lives. For them to hype a conservative opinion, to the exclusion of all other opinions, is not surprising. That’s what they do. But in this case they couldn’t even find a second source for the propaganda they want to disseminate. So they book the one source they have to the point of sheer tedium. What’s more, many of Fox’s pundits and hosts have spent the past several weeks demeaning the opinions of the kids who have been speaking out about gun violence. However, when they found one kid who has their bias, he is treated like a prophet and given an inordinate amount of airtime. It’s the same sort of hypocrisy that Fox News uses when they disparage celebrities who express themselves – except when its right-wing celebrities.

Expect to see more of Kashuv on Fox News in the coming days and weeks. And if their exploitation of this young man is carried to its logical conclusion, then expect to see him hosting his own Fox show or maybe becoming Trump’s next ATF director or even Attorney General.

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