Supreme Court

On FOX News Ingraham and Cruz Threaten to ‘CANCEL’ the Supreme Court if it Doesn’t Overturn Roe

Posted by on December 2, 2021 at 1:08 pm. 1 Comments :

The “Cancel Culture” rhetoric is an exclusively right-wing phenomenon intended to provide conservatives with a platform for whining about their imaginary victimhood. It is a thoroughly manufactured variant of what they used to call political correctness. Never mind that Republicans, Fox News – and especially the Undisputed King of Cancel Culture, Donald Trump – are more often the perpetrators of the alleged “canceling.”

Fox News, Laura Ingraham

Now Fox News is upping the ante with their cancellation fixation. While they frequently aimed their animus at targets like children’s toys, or sports figures, or even their own GOP confederates who they deem insufficiently obedient, they have now put the Supreme Court in their sights.

On Wednesday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case from Mississippi that seeks to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Virtually every media analysis of the proceedings came away with the impression the six conservative justices were strongly leaning toward upholding the Mississippi law that effectively bans abortion. But for some reason, that lockstep concurrence with anti-choice dogma wasn’t enough for Fox News host Laura Ingraham and her ideological twin, Sen. Ted Cruz. They were both incensed about something that was unclear. Perhaps it was the Court’s failure to issue an immediate edict sending all women who have considered abortion to Gitmo for reeducation. You decide…

Ingraham: If we have six Republican appointees on this court, after all the money that has been raised, the Federalist Society, all these big fat cat dinners – I’m sorry, I’m pissed about this – If this court with six justices cannot do the right thing here, the constitutional thing, then I think it’s time to do what Robert Bork said we should do. Which is to circumscribe the jurisdiction of this court and if they wanna blow it up, then that’s the way to change things finally. Because this can’t stand. This is insane.
Cruz: I would do that in a heartbeat. As you know the Constitution gives Congress the authority to restrict the jurisdiction of the court. I think we should do that.

Wow! Ingraham is actually suggesting that the Supreme Court vote a particular way because of the financial contributions to that position. She believes that if enough money is thrown at a case, the court is obligated to rule in favor of the “fat cats.” Likewise, she thinks that the justices have obligations to the political party of the president that appointed them. She is articulating her vision of a Supreme Brothel that is comprised not of justices, but of obedient political prostitutes.

What’s more, both Ingraham and Cruz are threatening to impose legislative constraints on the Court to limit what kinds of cases it is allowed to hear. There does appear to be a constitutional provision that could permit Congress to impose such constraints. Article III, Section 2 says that…

“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a Party, the Supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under “such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

The phrase granting “such Regulations as the Congress shall make,” is the part that could be interpreted as providing the limiting powers of Congress. But the phrase referencing that “a State shall be a Party,” to the “original Jurisdiction” might mean that any litigation wherein a state is a litigant is exempt from the limiting powers that are only available in matters of “appellate Jurisdiction.” (Constitutional lawyers, feel free to comment).

However, if Congress were to pass legislation dictating what the Court can consider, it would be opening up a Pandora’s Box of controversy. It would mean that the ever changing partisan majorities of Congress could exploit this legal loophole to impact matters as diverse as abortion, guns, civil rights, immigration, religion, voting, etc.

Ingraham and Cruz are clearly eager to risk that future of see-saw constitutionality for what they believe is in their near-term, partisan interest. They could come to regret that. But their support for treating the Court as beholden to money and party politics is unambiguously grotesque and un-America. Which also makes it unmistakably consistent with the Trumpian Republican brand.

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

Fox News Hacks Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro Really Don’t Get the Supreme Court

Posted by on April 15, 2021 at 4:03 pm. 2 Comments :

President Biden’s quiet competence and managerial success is befuddling his critics among the press and partisan Republican politicians. Consequently, they continue to have so little to do that they are making up pseudo-controversies to pass the time. It’s really pretty pathetic.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro

Their desperation has lead to tawdry displays of hostility related to relative trivialities. If they aren’t “canceling” their former Big Business allies, they are whining that Biden is neglecting such vital presidential duties as tweeting and yakking with cable news bootlickers.

Speaking of cable news bootlickers, the variety that has been polishing Donald Trump’s Tecovas, Fox News, is presently aghast at the thought of Democrats exploring the possibility of expanding the Supreme Court. A bill just introduced in the House suggests an increase from nine to thirteen justices.

There are plenty of rational arguments pro and con for this initiative but, somehow, the blowhards on Fox News evaded anything remotely resembling rationality. Tucker Carlson invited his Fox colleague “Judge” Jeanine Pirro on his program to mangle the issue beyond recognition (video below). The segment established with certainty that neither have any idea what the Supreme Court is. Pirro began by ranting that…

“This will change the United States dramatically. The left will have the ability to have in court – which is essentially nothing more than a legislative leaning body – that will approve of all of the issues that they are trying to make across the board in the United States. We will no longer have a Supreme Court that is based on the number of justices depending on who the president is. And it will all be leaning toward the person who is in office and who has the power. This is madness! It’s madness! As if the country isn’t lost enough.”

It truly is madness that Pirro thinks the Supreme Court isn’t already – and always has been – an institution significantly influenced by politics. That’s by design. The Constitution gave the power to nominate justices to the president and the responsibility of confirmation to the Senate. Both of which are political entities. However, she goes way too far to insist that the Court is just a legislative body. It absolutely is not. It has no power to draft legislation. It’s role is to ascertain whether laws, or specific applications of them, are consistent with congressional intent and the Constitution.

Pirro further misses the mark by claiming that an expanded Court unfairly serves one side of the political divide. In fact, it would be less likely to because there would be more diversity of opinion. Although the Court would still, contrary to Pirro’s musings, be made up of justices appointed by whoever is president. Where on Earth does she get the notion that that would change?

For his part, Carlson agrees with Pirro’s badly warped misinterpretations. He accuses Democratic proponents of expansion of saying “No more pretense. It’s purely a political body that rubber stamps our agenda.” And that’s different than the current Court, how? He claimed that an expanded Court would no longer be impartial, or be viewed that way. By whom? If he isn’t aware that the current justices aren’t already viewed as beholden to the political ideologies of the presidents who appointed them, he must be near comatose. Which leads to Pirro’s elaboration on her prior comments saying that “the people who are in power…”

“…are determined to make sure that their agenda is passed because you’ve got the president, and you’ve got the Congress, and now you’ve got the Supreme Court. […] We will lose our respect for that court as nothing more than a political legislative body. An imprimatur, if you will, for the Democrats.”

Really? And what does she think the present Court is “an imprimatur” for? She must know that Justice Gorsuch was only confirmed because Republicans in the Senate refused to consider an Obama nominee (Merrick Garland) for a year in order to give that nomination to the next president who they hoped would be a Republican (It was worse. It was Donald Trump). She must also know that Justice Kavanaugh was rammed through the Senate despite credible allegations that he was a boozing, sexual predator. She must also know that Justice Barrett was confirmed even though the opening she filled became available shortly before an election, which was the reason Republicans gave for not confirming Garland. Does she think that the present Court is well respected by most Americans? Carlson doesn’t think so. He closed the segment by lamenting that Democrats…

“…don’t care what you think. Which is not the way we think of democracy. In a democracy our leaders care what we think, by definition.”

If acting in a manner consistent with what the people want is how you show that you care what people think, then Carlson should be supporting the broadly popular President Biden. He should have supported the COVID relief and stimulus bill. He should be supporting the jobs and infrastructure bill. And he shouldn’t be feigning outrage over a proposal to expand the Court simply because Democrats – who the people elected – would have the first shot at nominating the new justices.

It is Carlson and Pirro who are the ones abandoning any pretense of impartiality in favor of being purely political. And they are doing it in such a way as to demonstrate their ignorance of democracy and the role of the Supreme Court. But would you expect any less of them, or of anyone else at Fox News?

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

https://twitter.com/TVNewsHQ/status/1382615603370934272

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

HOLY CRAP! Trump Floats a ‘Fight to the Death’ Over His Delusional Election Claims

Posted by on December 26, 2020 at 2:21 pm. 4 Comments :

Christmas week has seen the coronavirus pandemic reach new highs that exceed anything seen since the virus first appeared. So naturally, Donald Trump is at his Palm Beach golf resort watching Fox News (which he alternately hates and loves) and tweeting furiously and incoherently.

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Donald Trump

On Saturday morning Trump managed to achieve a unique milestone. In three tweets he succeeded in disparaging all three branches of government, much of which he is personally responsible for.

TWEET #1: The Judicial Branch


Trump is attacking the Supreme Court on which three of his appointees sit, along with three other conservative justices. But because they they had the audacity to rule according to the law, rather than his whims, they are deemed “totally incompetent and weak.” And if Trump has “absolute proof” of election fraud, why hasn’t he presented it in any of the nearly sixty cases he has already lost?

TWEET #2: The Executive Branch


Here Trump is attacking his own cabinet and administration officials. It’s false to say that none of them have done anything. They actually did investigate Trump’s bizarre election fraud claims – the few he bothered to submit – and found them all meritless. But Trump is right that “history will remember.’ Just not what he thinks will be remembered.

TWEET #3: The Legislative Branch


First of all, a Democratic candidate did have an election that was stolen. Hillary Clinton’s election was documented to have been marred by interference from Russia with the knowledge and complicity of the Trump campaign. We could also throw in Al Gore’s election where the Supreme Court halted recounts that would prove errors that resulted in Florida handing the race to George Bush.

More to the point, Trump is attacking his fellow Republicans in the Senate for not bending to his demands to unconstitutionally overturn the election results and the will of the people. But even more troubling is that Trump is raising the specter of violence with his apparent approval of a “fight to the death” in order to secure his bid to become president-for-life.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has tested a violent solution to his electoral humiliation. Earlier this month Trump spoke about a move to “escalate dramatically“ the opposition to Joe Biden’s victory and inauguration. It’s a theme he’s adopting more frequently as his time is running out.

For good measure, Trump also tweeted a ludicrous batch of nonsense about how states are managing the coronavirus pandemic. Since his negligence and incompetence have resulted in making everything worse, he’s attacking the states with lies to shift the blame to others:

Does Trump really think that lockdowns will result in “Far more than the damage that would be caused by the [Trump] Virus”? That would mean the lockdowns would have killed more than the 330,000 Americans who have already died due to COVID-19. And his assertion that cases in California have risen since the lockdown is a flagrant lie. The new restrictions were imposed because of the rise in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Furthermore, Florida is doing much worse than California per capita. California just recorded about 61 deaths per hundred thousand residents. In Florida the number is 98 deaths per hundred thousand.

So as usual, Trump is wrong about literally everything. And his tendency toward hostility and violence is the sort of thing that inspires the domestic terrorists that idolize Trump (i.e. the KKK, Proud Boys, etc.). He is inflaming these extremists deliberately in a futile, though dangerous, quest for power. And his purposefully reckless and irresponsible behavior is something that history will remember as well.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Thanks for your support.

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

WHUT? After Losing 50+ Times, Trump Whines He Was ‘Never Even Given Our Day in Court’

Posted by on December 12, 2020 at 11:55 am. 15 Comments :

[NOTE: the number of lost lawsuits is now over 60]

This is what the final stages of a psychotic meltdown looks like. Donald Trump has come face to face with the fact that he’s a loser who was decisively beaten by Joe Biden, a man he characterized as “sleepy” and “unfit to serve.” Trump is now confronting the reality that the majority of the American people are repulsed by him and his agenda of self-serving hate and division. For a malignant narcissist that’s a fate worse than death. And Trump’s response was to incite his glassy-eyed cult followers to violence.

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Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled against Trump’s last best hope to overturn the will of the people, he is hunkering down in his bunker, depressed and afraid to show his face in public. Friday night, at the last minute, Trump sent word to his guests at a White House Christmas party that he would not be attending. He probably spent the rest of the evening in bed, watching Fox News and gumming his hamberders.

However, today is a new day, and Trump awoke invigorated with the confidence of a rat at a cat convention. Seated on his “throne,” Trump grabbed his Twitter machine and began pounding out incoherent rants that only affirmed his cognitive decline. “WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!” Trump tweeted in all caps. As if he has been holding his fire for the past five weeks. And the rest of his Saturday morning tweetstorm was even more deranged. For instance…


Trump is lashing out at the Supreme Court, including the conservative justices and his own appointees. And he asserts that he was “Never even given our day in Court!” He must have slept trough the 50+ cases that he already lost in the most humiliating fashion.


Remember… Trump only thinks in terms of votes for him as being legal. All other voters are fake or frauds. The miracle is that his people listen to this nonsense despite his failure to provide even a sliver of proof.


Trump keeps showing that he will attack anyone – even his own party – if they fail to have unqualified devotion. But let’s appreciate his opposition to reelecting GOP governors.


“IF Biden gets in???” While continuing to disparage democracy, Trump’ rhetoric devolves into the hostile lingo of mob bosses.


When Trump resorts to accusing his own Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, of being part of the “Deep State” conspiracy against him, you know he’s gone over the edge.


The Supreme Court actually demonstrated – unanimously – that they did have an interest in “the greatest voter fraud ever perpetrated on the United States of America.” which is why they declined to hear a case that lacked standing, as well as evidence or legal reasoning.

Trump and his screwball attorneys have had dozens of opportunities to plead their case in court, but have failed to do so every time. All he has left is his fear and wrath, which he’s aiming at anyone he regards as disloyal. That includes some of his most fervent supporters and administration staff. Nobody is safe in the path of his hysterical rage.

Meanwhile, the nation – and the world – is watching as Trump decomposes like an overripe banana. And the rot is producing a toxic substance that threatens America’s tradition of peaceful transfers of power. With just a little more than a moth until Biden is inaugurated, we can only hope that Trump is constrained by either his incompetence or his Republican confederates who, so far, have exhibited nothing but spineless cowardice and sycophantic bootlicking. Hang tight, America.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Thanks for your support.

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

Trump’s Desperate Supreme Court Pleas to Steal the Election Only Humiliate Him Further

Posted by on December 11, 2020 at 1:33 pm. 2 Comments :

No one with any measurable judgment is ever going to mistake Donald Trump for an intellectual. His grasp of even the most simplistic concepts is tenuous. After all, Trump is the “stable genius” who believes that windmills cause cancer; that stealth fighters are really invisible; that hurricanes can be nuked; and that he won the election by getting seven million fewer votes than Joe Biden.

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Donald Trump

In his desperate attempts to overturn the will of the American people by invalidating their votes, Trump has racked up a win/loss record in the courts of 1 in 52 (at best). His arguments are pathetically weak and utterly devoid of supporting evidence. And his lawyers are crackpots who regurgitate conspiracy theories collected from fringe Internet trolls.

Nevertheless, Trump is hanging his hopes on the Supreme Court that he stacked with radical right-wingers. But, to date, even that hasn’t worked for him. The result is that he’s becoming ever more deranged and removed from anything resembling reality. He’s even resorting to thinly veiled calls for a violent upheaval to retain power. Trump’s latest entreaty to the high court is a sad example of this:

Let’s break down this pile of rhetorical manure, shall we? To begin with, Trump is referencing a recent report that President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, is under investigation for unspecified tax issues. This report was made public, not by some intrepid journalist, but by Hunter Biden, who maintains that his taxes were all filed appropriately and with the aid of professional tax preparers. He has not been found guilty of anything and he is cooperating fully with the authorities. As opposed to Trump who is still fighting to hide his tax returns even as his presidency is screeching to an ignoble halt.

Note that this matter does not concern Joe Biden in any way, much less suggest that his nascent presidency is “scandal plagued.” So Trump’s assertion that there is a presidential scandal brewing is a product of his warped imagination. More to the point, Trump is drawing a bizarre conclusion that a narrow tax dispute involving Biden’s son somehow affects the Supreme Court’s decision regarding Trump’s bogus election fraud whining. Why Hunter’s taxes would “make it easier” for the Supreme Court to act on Trump’s electoral complaints is a mystery that could only be solved by a skilled psychotherapist who specializes in malignant narcissists.

Trump obviously has no idea what the Supreme Court does or how it works. He clearly isn’t interested in following the Constitution because first he’d have to read and understand it. And if Trump really wants the Court to “do what everybody knows has to be done,” then they would refuse to hear his preposterous case. That wouldn’t even take much of the courage and/or wisdom that Trump is pleading for, but of which he has none of either.

To no one’s surprise, Trump is closing out his one-term in Washington as a bellowing, bull-headed, blowhard who can’t believe that he is the biggest loser. He even lost Time’s “Person of the Year” to Biden and Kamala Harris. So expect him to shortly announce his demand for a recount or his lawsuit to overturn the “RIGGED” decision.

UPDATE: The Supreme Court rejects Texas’ and Trump’s bid to overturn election. This case represented Trump’s last chance to pitch his election fraud nonsense and it was denied unanimously by the highest court in the land. Trump called it “The Big One!” Will he finally STFU? Not if he thinks he can scam more money off his glassy-eyed cult followers.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Thanks for your support.

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

Trump Reveals to Fox News His Plan to Get the Supreme Court to Declare Him President

Posted by on September 21, 2020 at 12:16 pm. 2 Comments :

This year appears to have a rather sadistic bent as it relentlessly piles on melodramas and anxieties. It’s not bad enough that we are suffering through a deadly pandemic that is being dreadfully mismanaged by Donald Trump. We are also having to deal with an economy in recession and civil unrest triggered by systemic racism. And all in an especially contentious election year.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

Adding to those national migraines is the tragic passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Not only has America lost an iconic figure who has made innumerable contributions to civil liberties and equal justice, but it thrusts the nation into a bitterly partisan battle to replace her. Republicans are shamelessly contradicting their previous insistence that the president shouldn’t nominate a Justice during an election year. Apparently that principle only applies to Democratic presidents. The GOP is perfectly OK with nominations by an impeached president who still has multiple criminal and civil indictments hanging over his head.

Making matters worse is Trump himself (as usual), who was “interviewed” twice in two days by Fox News. In a sit-down with Fox’s Mark Levin on Sunday night Trump whined that Fox News wasn’t sufficiently worshipful, and that they catered too much to Democrats. Are we sure that Trump even knows what channel he’s watching?

On Monday Trump visited the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. This is apparently his new regular gig that he leaked last week. It was there that he unleashed some wild speculations and disturbing revelations. When the subject to Ginsburg’s replacement came up, Trump led off with a thoroughly disgraceful allegation maligning the integrity of Ginsburg and her family:

Ainsley Earhardt: Then you have Ruth Bader Ginsburg who told her granddaughter on her death bed, allegedly, that her dying wish was to have the next president choose her successor. How do you think all this plays out?
Trump: I don’t know that she said that, or was that written out by Adam Schiff and Schumer and Pelosi. I would be more inclined to the second. Okay, it came out of the wind. It sounds so beautiful. But that sounds like a Schumer deal or maybe a Pelosi or Shifty Schiff. So that came out of the wind. Let’s see. I mean maybe she did and maybe she didn’t.”

Trump’s assertion is entirely without foundation – or decency. He is of such weak character that he can’t help politicizing this tragedy by invoking the names of his favorite foils in Congress. Rep. Schiff replied on Twitter, telling Trump that “This is low. Even for you.” But how difficult would it be to believe that Ginsburg had such feelings. She said so many times before. Unfortunately, Trump has an insatiable need to drag everything down to his loathsome level, even if it means desecrating the memory of a universally respected and honorable American. Even if it means despicably disparaging Ginsburg’s last wishes as a Democratic hoax.

Perhaps Trump can’t believe that Ginsburg would make what he curiously concedes is a “beautiful” statement (that “came out of the wind,” whatever that means) because it so far outside anything he is capable of. But he went on to expose his true agenda that reeks of the totalitarian aspirations for which he is well known:

“The bottom line is that we won the election. We have an obligation to do what’s right and act as quickly as possible. We should act quickly because we’re gonna have, probably, election things involved here, you know, because of the fake ballots they’ll be sending out. A terrible situation.”

Oh My! Our infamously inarticulate president is recognizing the threat of “election things” involved here. Never mind that those “things” are manufactured lies about mail-in voting that Trump has been telling for months without ever bothering to provide a scrap of evidence.

More importantly, Trump is confessing that his obsession with confirming a new Supreme Court Justice is rooted in his determination to steal the election. He is anticipating a legal battle for which he wants to make sure that he has a majority on the Court to rule in his favor and, if necessary, declare him the winner. This is the sort of court manipulation that is more common under dictators who pack their courts with subservients and sycophants.

What’s more, this is not an aberration or careless misstatement. Trump made similar remarks on Saturday at his latest cult rally and Super Spreader event in North Carolina. Worried about the prospect of there not being a declared winner on election night, Trump expressed his nefarious desire to put the decision in the hands of a court system that he has packed with allies:

“Now we’re counting on the federal court system to make it so that we can actually have an evening where we know who wins. Not where the votes are going to be counted a week later or two weeks later.”

This is Trump’s way of disenfranchising citizens who vote by mail. If their ballots are postmarked on or before election day, but the ballot processing and counting is not completed until some time after, Trump wants all of those votes to be invalidated. He is literally calling for the suppression of voter’s rights. And since more Democrats vote by mail, it’s easy to see why Trump is pursuing this. It is just the logical progression of his yearning for unchecked tyrannical power. And it must be vigorously challenged if America is to remain a free democratic republic.

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

Impeached Presidents Should Not Be Able To Nominate Supreme Court Justices

Posted by on September 19, 2020 at 1:38 pm. 2 Comments :

The passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is firstly a personal tragedy for her family, friends, colleagues, and the millions of people throughout the world who admired and were inspired by her intellect, her heart, and her fighting spirit. She is a historical figure whose impact has yet to be fully appreciated.

Donald Trump Walking the Plank

However, it would be naive to pretend that this grievous loss isn’t also a blow to the hopes and dreams of those Americans who value gender and racial equality and the Constitution’s protection for the rights of people over corporations and against the authoritarian aspirations of rogue “leaders.”

Justice Ginsburg was a guardian of the principles that ensure freedom for all Americans. Her loss would be staggering under any circumstance. But to lose her while an ignorant, sociopathic, narcissist is salivating over the prospect of replacing her with an unqualified, neanderthal wingnut is especially painful. The thought of Donald Trump selecting one of his pre-chewed right-wing Stepford judges to take the place of a bona fide superhero of constitutional jurisprudence is excruciating. And Trump’s undisguised glee at having this opportunity is salt in our wounds:

What’s missing from this statement is any hint of reality. Trump was not “put in this position of power and importance” by the American people. They voted against him by a record margin. He was installed by an archaic Electoral College that is anathema to democracy. What’s more, Americans are not proud of Trump. Quite the opposite. He is regarded as a buffoon who is only interested in himself and his puerile pleasures of golfing, tweeting, watching Fox News, and exacting revenge on his perceived enemies.

What Trump is calling an “obligation” is actually just another attempt to steal a seat on the Supreme Court on behalf of his neo-fascist associates in Congress, tunnel-blind evangelicals, and corporate overlords. Trump is violating the precedent set by his GOP confederates who refused to even give a hearing – much less a vote – to an Obama Court nominee during an election year.

Were there any justice in this world, a president who has been impeached ought not to be able to nominate a Supreme Court Justice. Furthermore, impeached presidents with close ties to numerous felons (and pending indictments of his own) should be prohibited from nominating any judges or agency heads or bull manure shovelers. Although, if you’ve ever seen Trump speaking at one of his cult rallies you’d know that shoveling bull manure is something that he is actually pretty good at.

Unfortunately, the last thing we can expect from Trump, or any Republican, is integrity or consistency. They will shamelessly march forward to breach their own precedents without regard to the brazen hypocrisy of their actions.

Consequently, Democrats need to up their game. First of all, they need to win back the White House and the Senate. Then they must abolish the filibuster. Then they need to expand the Supreme Court to fifteen seats. And finally, they need to advance to statehood Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. And it wouldn’t hurt to collapse North and South Dakota into a single state. Seriously, do we really need two sparsely populated Dakotas?

After completing these steps we can begin to restore the nation’s honor and respect for the constitutional principles that empower our democracy and enable our freedoms. We can bring justice to bear on those who betrayed the country in pursuit of greed and power. And we can heal the divisions that Trump deliberately created and exploited in order to advance his self-serving agenda.

It won’t be easy, but it wasn’t easy for Justice Ginsburg to wage a lonely fight for decades either. She should be our inspiration today. And we should be the custodians of her legacy and her last request: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

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

Supreme Court Rulings Against Trump Trigger His Paranoid, Delusional Reality

Posted by on July 9, 2020 at 1:33 pm. NO Comments :

Watching the spectacular and accelerating mental decline of Donald Trump is becoming more disturbing with each new day’s revelations. And the shove off of the cliff of sanity was especially profound following Thursday morning’s news that the Supreme Court ruled against Trump on two major cases involving access to his financial records.

Donald Trump Red Face

In short, the cases concluded by a 7-2 vote that Trump may not shield his finances from law enforcement or congressional inquiries. In the former case the ruling was clear that no president is above the law and that subpoenas by District Attorney of New York are proper and enforceable. In the latter case the court agreed that Congress also had authority to demand such records, but required their subpoenas to be less broadly stated. It remains uncertain whether this information will become public before election day, but just the pending prosecutions will be a political albatross around Trump’s neck for the next four months.

Immediately following these rulings, Trump went on a Twitter tirade attacking the courts, the justices, the law, and even his own judicial appointees. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh both voted with the majority on both cases. Trump’s tweets were additional evidence that he suffering from severe psychological trauma that is aggravated by this sort of devastating news. He began with a tweet saying that…

“We have a totally corrupt previous Administration, including a President and Vice President who spied on my campaign, AND GOT CAUGHT…and nothing happens to them. This crime was taking place even before my election, everyone knows it, and yet all are frozen stiff with fear.”

Here Trump sets the tone for his message of the day. It amounts to a non-defense that rests on making baseless accusations against others. But not only is there no evidence of wrongdoing by President Obama, Joe Biden, or Trump’s other mortal enemies from the past, it doesn’t deny a single allegation against him. In effect, it’s the “I’ll whine until you forget all the crap I did wrong” defense. He went from there to this…

“No Republican Senate Judiciary response, NO ‘JUSTICE’, NO FBI, NO NOTHING. Major horror show REPORTS on Comey & McCabe, guilty as hell, nothing happens. Catch Obama & Biden cold, nothing. A 3 year, $45,000,000 Mueller HOAX, failed – investigated everything.”

Of course, all those who Trump is convicting in his tweet have not been found to be guilty by any court. This guilt lies only in the deranged mind of Trump. And he is reverting to his old standard of calling anything that reflects poorly on him a “hoax” (Russia, Ukraine, coronavirus, etc.) It’s notable that the targets of his wrath here are his GOP confederates in the Senate, his own Justice Department, and an FBI run by his hand-picked appointees. Then he continues…

“Won all against the Federal Government and the Democrats send everything to politically corrupt New York, which is falling apart with everyone leaving, to give it a second, third and fourth try. Now the Supreme Court gives a delay ruling that they would never have given for any other president.”

First of all, Trump’s assertion that he “won all” can only be described as demented. Even the Fox News senior legal analyst says that Trump lost both cases. And once again, Trump identifies his foe as “the Federal Government” that he is at the helm of. Furthermore, his swipe at New York’s legal establishment is a desperately wild swing that fails miserably to advance any goal he might have. But he’s still not through…

“This is about PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT. We catch the other side SPYING on my campaign, the biggest political crime and scandal in U.S. history, and NOTHING HAPPENS. But despite this, I have done more than any President in history in first 3 1/2 years!”

Needless to say, there never was any spying on Trump’s campaign. However Trump’s claim that he’s “done more than any President in history” would be correct if he just added the word “harm” after the word “more.” Then Trump closes this harangue with the all-caps, classic whine, “POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”

What this all amounts to is further proof of how rapidly Trump is spiral downward. His psychoses have been well documented and their effects long predicted. And as more revelations of his crimes are exposed, these episodes of derangement will continue and intensify. BE AFRAID! Here’s a few previous articles that addressed Trump’s failing mental state:

For more confirmation, see “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” And then there’s this…

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

Trump’s Lie-Riddled Juneteenth Tweetstorm Ignores Juneteenth, Threatens Protesters

Posted by on June 19, 2020 at 12:34 pm. NO Comments :

It’s Juneteenth, and in celebration of this profoundly significant day in American history Donald Trump took the time to unleash a stream of hostile, egocentric, lie-riddled tweets. So it’s pretty much like every other day in Trump World. He utterly ignored the day’s meaning and memory in favor of paying tribute to himself and maligning his perceived enemies.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

At the top of Trump’s list of priorities was his determination to slander any protesters who might show up at his cult rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You know, the one where he’s purposefully exposing his cult followers to the coronavirus in a state that just reported a record high infection rate. His tweet was another demonstration of his anti-American aspirations of tyranny.

Notice that Trump associates lawful, constitutionally protected protesters with “looters” and “lowlifes,” because that’s exactly what he thinks of people petitioning the government for justice and liberty. And his assurance that they will not be treated like they were previously (which was also pretty awful) is an undisguised threat of more violence. That’s all the more offensive considering that this threat was made on Juneteenth, in a city that was the site of a brutal massacre of African-Americans.

Not to worry. Trump hasn’t forgotten to tell his Twitterati that he will have “big crowds” and that his campaign is just beginning. Never mind that he actually began his reelection campaign the same day he was inaugurated three and half years ago. That campaign is floundering desperately today as every poll shows that Trump is trailing Joe Biden nationally, as well as in the crucial swing states. He is losing in nearly every demographic category, including among normally reliable supporters like suburban women and evangelicals. His support among non-white voters has never been worse. That’s partly due to his flagrant racism and tweets like this one:

So after the Supreme Court ruled against his abhorrent attempt to deport Dreamers, Trump has the audacity to say that he “wanted to take care of DACA recipients better than” Democrats. Seriously? If that were true he wouldn’t be saying even now that “We will be submitting enhanced papers shortly” to finish the job of deporting these innocent Americans who know no other home. This has been a signature issue with Trump, which explains his outrage that the Court he thought he had under his thumb displayed some measure of independence.

Furthermore, Trump’s toxic fury is not reserved for the Supreme Court (or protesters, or John Bolton, or Joe Biden, or the press, or anyone or anything else that doesn’t bow down to him). He is also mad at his State TV network (aka Fox News) for publishing a poll that shows him losing to Biden by a whopping twelve points. The poll also shows Trump’s approval in the red by negative thirteen points, while Biden is positive by nine points. Almost every question in the poll has bad results for Trump. Which explains this tweet:

For the record, Trump has made this complaint before, but it’s always a deeply hypocritical whining session aimed at nudging Fox News into being even more reverential. He only thinks that “Fox is terrible” when they publish something that fails to sufficiently worship him as the Messiah he considers himself to be. But he continues to grant interviews almost exclusively to Fox because he knows they will pitch him softballs and ignore his flaming gaffes.

SIDE NOTE: A few days ago CNN posted a poll that also showed Trump trailing Biden by twelve points. So Trump sent them a “cease and desist” letter and threatened to sue the network for…oh, who the hell knows what. It will be interesting to see if he sends Fox News a similar letter. But don’t hold your breath.

Finally, Trump posted a couple of tweets accusing Democrats of false advertising. As usual, he neglected to provide any examples, or to offer any arguments to refute whatever the heck it is he’s whining about. But he did make blatantly false assertions that “China is paying us $BILLIONS” (actually that’s ZERO), and that he “LOVE[s] Seniors & protect Preexisting C’s” (he is currently suing to terminate Obamacare, including preexisting c[onditions]). In other words, it’s business as usual in the Trump White House where lying, insults, and undeserved boasting has replaced being presidential and serving the American people.

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

Raging Malignant Narcissism: Trump Whines that ‘the Supreme Court Doesn’t Like Me’

Posted by on June 18, 2020 at 12:35 pm. 4 Comments :

With each new day there is new evidence that Donald Trump is descending into an abyss of paranoia and mental infirmity. These are symptoms of malignant narcissism, along with acute sociopathy, unchecked aggression, and delusions of grandeur. It is abundantly clear that Trump is unfit for office and represents an imminent danger to the nation and the world.

Donald Trump, Twitter

Trump is freaking out again on Twitter. This time his tantrum was triggered by the Supreme Court ruling that his attempt to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was “arbitrary and capricious,” and therefore unconstitutional. He unleashed a stream of tweets complaining about the decision without offering any legal basis for his position. However he did tweet this very revealing message:

Well, do you? More likely you get the impression that Trump internalizes everything as an attack on him personally. It’s the sort of obsessive whining that he has actually bragged about and has become emblematic of his irreparably fractured and intensely flawed personality disorder. He has also explicitly complained in the past that “All I see is hatred of me.”

One of the most consistent features of Trump’s character (or lack thereof), is how predictably and viciously he will turn against anyone who isn’t unflinchingly loyal and slavishly adoring. That has been observed in his broken relationships with former staffers (Kelly, Mattis, McMasters, Tillerson, Sessions, etc). It has also been seen in his love/hate relationship with Fox News.

Most recently Trump has turned against his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton. In a series of Thursday morning tweets, Trump ranted that Bolton’s book is “a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad.” Notice that Trump is again consumed with how things make him look. But his assertion that the book is “pure fiction” destroys his case that it contains classified material.

Trump also elevated his hostility toward the Supreme Court decisions into a bizarre screed about the Second Amendment tweeting that the decisions “are shotgun blasts into the face of people,” and threatened that “we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else.” This, of course, is simply a wild swing at corralling his most rabid base-dwellers with nothing but blatant fear mongering. Which is likely to work on the few remaining dimwitted Deplorables who worship him as their Messiah. However, the imagery of faces bloodied by shotgun blasts as an argument against the Court’s rulings is not likely to appeal to most Americans.

The Supreme Court has surprised many people with its decisions on DACA, sanctuary cities, LGBTQ+ rights, and the census. But the Court remains a conservative body with a 5 to 4 right-wing majority. Trump should be optimistic that most of their decisions will fall into the conservative camp on party line votes. But because he isn’t getting 100% submissiveness from the judicial branch, he is bellowing frantically about the loss of “everything” and begging his cult to support him at the ballot box in November.

The only problem with that, from Trump’s perspective, is that everything he is doing and saying is driving voters farther away from his candidacy, as well as those of other Republicans running for the House, Senate, and state and local offices. Right now Donald Trump is the best campaign ad that Democrats have ever had, even if it is painful to watch and live through.

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