Tea Party

Pro-Trump Crackpot Gets Booed Off Stage After Interrupting Shakespeare in the Park (VIDEO)

Posted by on June 17, 2017 at 2:03 pm. 4 Comments :

New York’s Public Theater has been providing free performances of Shakespeare in Central Park for more than sixty years. It’s a non-profit, public service that contributes to the cultural advancement of the community and is available to everyone. It is generally not the scene of political controversy, however, last week became a rare exception.

Shakespeare Protester

The theater group staged a stylized performance of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Taking creative license, they cast Caesar as a Donald Trump lookalike. Consequently, when the scene in the play that depicts Caesar’s assassination came, the character was brutally stabbed to death. Unable to distinguish between reality and fiction, conservatives went into a frenzy asserting that the play was advocating Trump’s assassination. It didn’t take long before the alt-right media was accusing all liberals of being violent and bloodthirsty.

Friday night the performance suffered further attacks when a pro-Trump extremist blogger leaped onto the stage. She began screaming feverishly about alleged “political violence against the right.” Ironically, Laura Loomer writes for a website called TheRebel, a name that implies militant violence.

The interruption was clearly not appreciated by the audience. They immediately burst into a chorus of boos as the cast surrounded Loomer and waited for security to escort her from the stage. And as she was led away the audience cheered and applauded. Surprisingly, Loomer posted video of this embarrassment as if she were proud of it.

https://youtu.be/f8B8dYhbTeU

following the incident, Loomer had her accomplices video her arrest. Of course, she regarded this as a travesty of justice since all she was doing was defending her Dear Leader, Donald Trump. But her harangue drifted into some peculiar, paranoid territory:

“I really think that the left wants there to be another civil war in this country because they’re so polarizing and they’re so violent. They’re so disgusting. They lack morals. And they really want there to be an assassination so there’s not only a full blown race war, but they want there to be political wars.”

How she concludes that this play makes any statement related to race wars is a mystery only her psychologist can resolve. Perhaps it’s an admission that any criticism of Trump would be countered by his devoted racist supporters. But the hypocrisy is glaringly evident. She attacks the left as polarizing mere seconds before insulting them as disgusting and devoid of morals. That isn’t polarizing at all, is it?

Loomer tries to portray herself as an investigative journalist. But her resume betrays that as absurd. She got her start working for the disgraced and irrelevant confessed criminal, James O’Keefe. For a brief period of time O’Keefe made headlines by producing widely debunked, and deceptively edited, videos intended to slander Democrats. Now his reputation is so toxic that even Fox News won’t publish his nonsense anymore.

So it’s easy to see where Loomer got her idea that interrupting a play with incoherent hollering would be a reasonable act of protest. The only thing she achieved was attracting praise from the alt-right true believers who already worship this sort of idiocy. Disreputable folks like Mike Cernovich, Dinesh D’Souza?, and Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit) rushed to her defense. Alex Jones of Infowars tweeted that she was a “patriot.” And Laura Ingraham of Fox News had this say:

First of all, President Obama was the target of innumerable attacks that included stabbing, lynching, and other forms of assassination. The right finds it convenient to forget about that. But Ingraham’s remarks about how liberals would behave in circumstances similar to this one are painfully ignorant. In 2012, the same play was staged with an Obama character in the role of Caesar. There were no protests or juvenile interruptions of the performance.

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

Hypocrisy is no stranger to the right. When Tea Party activists stormed congressional town halls, conservatives hailed them as heroes. When liberals did the same thing earlier this year, the same conservatives condemned them as subversives. When liberals protest speeches on college campuses by white supremacists they are accused of being against free speech. But when Trump and his cohorts advocate government control of the media, the right cheers and agrees. So if you’re looking the differences between left and right responses to expressions of political viewpoints, you need look no further than people like Laura Loomer and the censorious president she idolizes.

The ‘So-Called’ Trump Presidency Is Crumbling Under The Pressure – And They Know It

Posted by on February 22, 2017 at 5:37 pm. NO Comments :

Since the day that Donald Trump was inaugurated, the American people have flooded the streets and town halls to express their opposition to his agenda. Unprecedented numbers of citizens turned out for the nationwide Women’s March on January 21. A week later, more protesters showed up spontaneously at airports to oppose Trump’s Muslim ban. Now town halls are being inundated by angry voters who won’t stand for Trump’s efforts to gut ObamaCare.

Mitch McConnell GOP Town Hall

These protests are having a profound effect on the Republican Party. Nervous GOP representatives in Washington, and across the nation, are running scared – literally. Many are avoiding their own constituents meetings for fear of encountering their wrath. And the ones that are going are being greeted by passionate advocates for progressive policies and values.

For those who are skeptical that these tactics are effective, set aside your worries. There is abundant evidence that they are working better than anyone anticipated. And the best proof of that comes from Republicans themselves. Take for instance the remarks by former GOP senator Jim DeMint. He is currently the president of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. Tuesday night he was interviewed by Greta Van Susteren on MSNBC (video below). His intent was to vent his displeasure with citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. But he ended up validating the efforts of the citizens he hoped to discredit:

“It’s not really like the Tea Party. I was going through this document today, Indivisible. These folks are very well financed. Very well organized. They’re being bused around to go to these different town halls to disrupt them.”

First of all, he’s partially correct about the Tea Party. It was quite different in that it was bankrolled by the billionaire Koch brothers. The Indivisible Movement is a grassroots campaign whose partners are social activist organizations, not multinational corporations. However, DeMint’s assertion that protesters are being “bused around” is delusional. They would have to have thousands of buses motoring across the whole country at impossible speeds. But DeMint wasn’t finished:

“So it’s gonna be difficult for congressmen to go out and defend their positions. Because these folks who are coming are not coming to contribute. They’re coming to disrupt. So it’s an organized effort to make it hard for Trump and Republican congress to be successful.”

DeMint is admitting that the GOP’s position is difficult to defend. No kidding. Their platform calls for throwing twenty million people off of their health insurance plans. It proposes tax reforms that will shift the burden from the rich to the middle-class and poor. They are pushing bigoted immigration schemes that will ban Muslims and deport Latinos. And DeMint wonders why that might be difficult to defend? But here’s the best part:

“Hopefully they [Republicans] will continue to plow through. Although I’m concerned that all of this push-back has delayed the repeal of ObamaCare, and certainly other agenda items that need to be taken up.”

That’s right. It’s working. Keep it up. It is highly unusual for a right-wing political operative to concede that his opponents are winning. This admission ought to encourage every progressive to redouble their efforts to prevent the Trump agenda from being implemented. These actions are also being felt all the way up to the White House. They’re rolling out their talking points intended to portray the protests as “fake news.” Press secretary Sean Spicer (Fibby Spice) laments that “There is a bit of professional protester, manufactured base in there.” And Trump himself tweeted this:

We previously were warned about “so-called judges,” and now we have “so-called angry crowds.” Apparently our so-called President is living in a so-called reality where anything he doesn’t like is fake. SAD! It’s not surprising that he’s baffled by citizens “planning” their activities, rather than behaving erratically the way he does. Even worse, in a recent press conference Trump made it clear that he is not the president of all the people:

“We’ve begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare. Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It’s a disaster. You can say, oh, Obamacare — I mean, they fill up our alleys with people that you wonder how they get there, but they’re not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.”

Setting aside the odd reference to “alleys,” Trump just confessed that he’s only interested in what Republicans have to say. He continues to prove that he’s a divisive, partisan politician with no interest in having a productive dialog. The extremists in Trump’s administration are determined to steamroll their agenda of hate and elitism through a rubber-stamp congress. Unfortunately for them, the American people do not seem willing to allow it. And if we keep the pressure on, we can stop them in their tracks and replace them in 2018. Forward.

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

GOP Official Is Booed After Resurrecting ‘Death Panels’ Lie – Then Calls Citizens ‘Children’

Posted by on February 11, 2017 at 3:09 pm. 1 Comments :

The American people are turning out in droves to protest the fumbling new administration of Donald Trump. Town hall meetings across the country have been packed with citizens expressing their outrage. The topics of concern cover everything from Trump’s Muslim ban to Congress’ do-nothing stance on Trump’s ties to Vladimir Putin and election tampering.

GOP Death Panel Town Hall

Citizens fed up with Trump’s incompetence and right-wing crackpottery are taking a page from the defunct Tea Party’s playbook. They are showing up at town halls and making certain that their voices are heard. The strategy is being advocated by independent grassroots organizers that have come to be known as the “Indivisible Movement”

The effects of the strategy are being felt by both Democrats and Republicans nationwide. Jason Chaffetz, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, got a taste of it this week. Constituents upset with his failure to investigate any of the myriad scandals associated with Trump showed up in force. And that was in bright red Utah.

On Saturday, a town hall in Florida for GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis erupted into chaos when a Republican Party official rose to speak. Bill Akins, secretary of the Pasco County, Florida, Republican Executive Committee, ventured into territory not traveled since the heyday of the Tea Party. Seeking to defend the GOP’s efforts to repeal ObamaCare, he said:

“Here’s the problems I have with the Affordable Care Act. Number one, there is a provision in there that anyone over the age of 74 has to go before what is effectively a death panel.”

With that the room exploded in a chorus of boos, with many shouting that he was a “liar” and “wrong.” Undeterred, Akins stood at the front of the hall insisting that he was right and insulting the assembled citizens:

“Yes they do. Yes they do. It’s in there folks. You’re wrong. […] OK, children. Alright, children.”

For the record, the death panel myth was started by rightist conspiracy kook Betsy McCaughey, and made famous by Sarah Palin. There was never any truth to the claim. In 2009 PolitiFact crowned the Lie of the Year. But that didn’t stop Akins from attempting to resurrect it from its well deserved burial.

It makes perfect sense that this notorious falsehood would reemerge in the Era of Trump. This is time a that is ripe for lies, deception, and disinformation. It’s a time for “alternative facts” and “fake news.” It’s Donald Trump’s contribution to public discourse. And he gets welcome support from Fox News and other conservative media that eagerly regurgitate the very same lies – or as they should properly be known – Trumpisms.

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

Where’s The Wingnut Outrage? Donald Trump Doesn’t Believe In American Exceptionalism (Video)

Posted by on June 8, 2016 at 10:33 am. 3 Comments :

For the past eight years Fox News has raked President Obama over the coals alleging (falsely) that he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism. It became a fixed component of their formulaic anti-Obama messaging that dove-tailed with their attacks on his patriotism and demands to see his birth certificate. They wanted to know how he could possibly be president if he didn’t have an all-consuming sense of national superiority.

If you love America so much why don’t you marry it?

Pee Wee Donald Trump

For the record, Obama frequently articulated a deep and personal gratitude for his homeland and cited his own remarkable career as evidence of what makes America exceptional. But that wasn’t enough for the tunnel-blind Fox Newsers and Republicans who don’t see or hear anything that conflicts with their bigoted preconceptions.

So what will they do now that Donald Trump has explicitly said that he doesn’t believe American exceptionalism, as he did recently at a meeting of Tea Party “patriots” in Texas? Do you think the GOP and Fox zombies will mind? Try and wade through this dialogical disgorgement to see exactly what Trump thinks of the country he says he will make great again:

“I don’t like the term. I’ll be honest with you. People say, ‘Oh he’s not patriotic.’ Look, if I’m a Russian, or I’m a German, or I’m a person we do business with, why, you know, I don’t think it’s a very nice term. We’re exceptional; you’re not. First of all, Germany is eating our lunch. So they say, ‘Why are you exceptional. We’re doing a lot better than you.’ I never liked the term. And perhaps that’s because I don’t have a very big ego [audience laughs] and I don’t need terms like that. Honestly. When you’re doing business — I watch Obama every once in a while saying ‘American exceptionalism,’ it’s [Trump scowls]. I don’t like the term. Because we’re dealing — First of all, I want to take everything back from the world that we’ve given them. We’ve given them so much. On top of taking it back, I don’t want to say, ‘We’re exceptional. We’re more exceptional.’ Because essentially we’re saying we’re more outstanding than you. ‘By the way, you’ve been eating our lunch for the last 20 years, but we’re more exceptional than you.’ I don’t like the term. I never liked it. When I see these politicians get up… ‘the American exceptionalism ‘- we’re dying. We owe 18 trillion in debt. I’d like to make us exceptional. And I’d like to talk later instead of now. Does that make any sense? Because I think you’re insulting the world. And you, know, Jim, if you’re German, or you’re from Japan, or you’re from China, you don’t want to have people saying that. I never liked the expression. And I see a lot of good patriots get up and talk about Amer… — you can think it, but I don’t think we should say it. We may have a chance to say it in the not-too-distant future. But even then, I wouldn’t say it because when I take back the jobs, and when I take back all that money and we get all our stuff, I’m not going to rub it in. Let’s not rub it in. Let’s not rub it in. But I never liked that term.“

Did you sort of get the feeling that Trump doesn’t like the term American exceptionalism? If you managed to make it through that nearly incoherent rambling, you will also have noticed that, not only does Trump not believe that America is exceptional, he doesn’t believe it’s even adequate. He rattles off a long list of failings that portray a “dying” America as inferior to many other nations who are “eating our lunch.” No wonder he titled his book Crippled America.

The question now is whether Fox News and the robo-conservatives will hold Trump to the same standard that they held Obama. Will they condemn him as traitorous and unfit to lead a nation of patriotic narcissists? Or will they convince themselves that this never happened and their hero is still the anointed orange savior of America? I think we already know the answer.

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

If Only: WSJ Says Obama Is Six Months Away From Destroying The Republican Party

Posted by on April 2, 2016 at 2:57 pm. 4 Comments :

The Wall Street Journal just published an editorial that might have been dismissed as an April Fool’s joke, except that it was published on March 30. It is the sort of delusional crackpottery to which conservatives resort when their denial overpowers what little common sense they have.

Obama Destroys GOP

The article by Dan Henninger, the paper’s Deputy Editorial Page Director and a Fox News contributor, is fretfully titled “Obama’s Greatest Triumph: He is six months away from destroying both the Republican Party and Reagan’s legacy.” While the claim is one that stirs the promise of hope in every liberal, Henninger may be giving Obama more credit than he deserves. The truth is that the Republican Party may indeed be six months from destruction, but Obama has had little to do with it.

Henninger is employing the venerable rightist tactic of blaming Obama for anything that they deem undesirable. For instance, wingnuts on the right have blamed Obama for the bombing in Brussels, California’s drought, Ebola, and even Hurricane Katrina. He is blamed for high gas prices that hurt consumers, as well as for low gas prices that hurt oil companies. In the warped minds of conservatives there is no way that Obama can win.

And now the disintegration of the Republican Party is just another disaster caused by a president that the right believes is both an evil genius and a lazy incompetent. He’s working determinedly to destroy America while doing nothing but playing golf. The editorial begins with the premise that…

“Barack Obama will retire a happy man. He is now close to destroying his political enemies—the Republican Party, the American conservative movement and the public-policy legacy of Ronald Reagan.”

And how does Henninger arrive at this conclusion? By observing that the GOP has withered into a hollow shell of a party and that…

“With no party spokesman for conservatism, an ideological vacuum existed. Freelance operators filled it.”

The freelancers identified by Henninger are otherwise known as some of the leading figures of their party, including presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Henninger doesn’t explain the dastardly scheme that Obama used to get Republicans to elevate these fruitcakes to their current status, but rest assured, it must have been as diabolical as it was brilliant. But that was only the beginning. Obama’s plots conspired to turn the Republican Party against itself, even utilizing reliably right-wing think tanks and media to do the dirty work.

“They also included a movement to purge and cleanse conservatism, led by groups such as Heritage Action and by talk radio hosts. Together they conjured an internal enemy—the Republican Establishment.”

Once again there is no explanation for how Obama managed to get the ultra-rightist Heritage Foundation, Rush Limbaugh, et al, to turn their fire at the so-called “Republican Establishment,” which in reality is no different than what is regarded as the Republican outsiders like the Tea Party. They are all of the same hive mind politically, and advocate for exactly the same agenda.

Nevertheless, Henninger’s proposition that the turmoil in the GOP was brought about by some wizardry on the part of Obama was made even more devious by the President’s ability to keep his fingerprints off of the plan. As Henninger describes it…

“With his Cheshire Cat grin, Barack Obama faded into the background and let the conservatives’ civil war rip. […] The anti-establishment offensive created a frenzy faction inside the Republican base. And of course, it produced Donald Trump.”

Now that is the ultimate praise from the conservative columnist. Taking credit for saddling Republicans with Donald Trump would be a feather in the cap of any Democrat. It would be like threading the Deathstar needle in an X-Wing Starfighter to blow it to smithereens. Obama must truly be a Jedi Master.

All kidding aside, the desperation in this editorial to indict Obama for crimes against the GOP is hilariously obtuse. Responsibility for the Republican Party’s destruction lies solely with GOP politicians, pundits, and voters, who encouraged the foolishness of the Tea Party malcontents to screech their unfocused and incoherent anger at anyone who sought to behave reasonably or to conduct the work of government. It wasn’t Obama who unseated the GOP House Majority Leader. And it wasn’t Democrats who primaried veteran Republican members of Congress. And any clear-eyed observer knows that Donald Trump was the inevitable consequence of their festering rage.

Henninger whines that the GOP’s “bizarre” response to the Obama administration produced a result wherein “the Republicans decided to destroy each other.” That’s true, but it wasn’t Obama who got them to become so bizarre. That’s an honor that they can only award to themselves. And now that most of them are horrified by the prospect of Donald Trump becoming their standard bearer, they are struggling to avoid accountability and to lay the blame at the feet of the President who has been the most consistent victim of their madness. But that is only more proof that they are still suffering from an acute case of denial. And there is no sign that a cure is on the horizon.

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

The Republican Party may very well be six months away from being destroyed. And if it is, the credit belongs to the party and the conservative media that has been deceiving their constituents for the past eight years (or more). At least RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was honest about it when he said that “Republicans don’t exist as a national political party if we do not win in 2016.” To which America is saying “You promise?”

Fox News Shamelessly Whitewashes Donald Trump’s Threat Of RNC Riots

Posted by on March 21, 2016 at 8:50 am. NO Comments :

It is difficult to recall any leading candidate for president who has so frequently and blatantly insinuated the threat of violence into a political campaign as Donald Trump. And his threats have not been merely hypothetical rhetoric, they have produced actual assaults at his rallies on peaceful protesters and even members of the press.

Donald Trump Fox News

When Trump made recent comments that he expects that there will be riots at the Republican National Convention if he is not given the GOP nomination for president that he believes is his entitlement, he said it in the context of his prior statements that literally encouraged violence from his followers. However, Fox News is trying desperately to absolve him of any responsibility for the potential harm that he is forecasting and inciting. This morning on MediaBuzz with Howard Kurtz, the host went to great extremes to let Trump off the hook:

“I was surprised that the media went to DEFCON 1 over Trump’s riots comment. I mean, I’ve used that phrase, ‘oh, there will be riots if this happens,’ and I thought it was hyperbole.”

That is typical of what is coming from the Trump apologists at Fox News. They are lock-step in agreement that Trump’s dangerous language is merely a figure of speech or, at worst, a careless exaggeration. What they seem to be purposefully sweep under the rug is the full story that Trump is telling his glassy-eyed disciples. That story includes advocating openly hostile behavior such as his desire to “punch [protesters] in the face,” and his praising of an assault about which he said the protester “deserved to be roughed up.” He lamented the old days when protesters would be “carried out on a stretcher,” and even offered to pay the legal fees of his goons if they “knocked the crap out of” some protesters (see the video below). In light of all of that, his talk of riots can no longer be dismissed as hyperbole. What Trump actually said was…

“I don’t think you can say that we don’t get [the nomination] automatically. I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing a tremendous — many, many millions of people. […] I think bad things would happen. I really do, I believe that. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”

In other words, if his tyrannical orders are not obeyed, his followers have his permission to fulfill his prophecy. He knows exactly what his storm-Trumpers are capable of. This was an unambiguous threat intended by Trump to convey that he is determined to be the GOP nominee, or else. And if he is not exalted, riots will ensue. Of course he says that he “wouldn’t lead it,” but conspicuously never says that it shouldn’t happen. That wasn’t an accident. It was a message.

For Howard Kurtz to pretend that Trump was entertaining a flight of fancy and meant no harm requires a massive dose of self-delusion. And on that measure, Kurtz is full of it. He has performed the duties of Trump’s fluffer before, as he tried to exempt Trump from criticism for his repugnant remarks, while simultaneously trying to keep Trump’s verbal fecal splatter from soiling the Republican Party.

Kurtz had help from his Fox News comrades who similarly stepped up to scour the scum off of Trump. Fox regulars Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt, Greta Van Susteren, Andrea Tantaros, and Chris Wallace all sought to attach the “figure of speech” fallacy to Trump’s hate-speech.

In addition to whitewashing Trump’s endorsement of riots, Fox made sure that the protesters were disparaged as the real problem simply for exercising their rights to express themselves. In the view of Fox News the First Amendment is only available to conservatives, and dissenters are infringing on them when they seek to speak out. Had Fox been around when Martin Luther King was protesting racist segregation in Alabama, they would have vilified him for interrupting George Wallace’s freedom to oppress black schoolchildren.

Fox News

In pursuit of the sort slander that turned bigots like Wallace into heroes, Fox trotted some of their old fear mongering to rile up their dimwitted audience. Trump is standing in today for Wallace, but his bigotry is no different. So Fox is going after Trump’s protesters so as to turn them into villains. And of course Fox’s coverage of protesters is always slanted to portray progressives as evil, but a couple of years ago, when the protesters were the Tea Party, Fox heralded them as patriots. Now the foul remnants of the Tea Party are lining up behind Donald Trump. And Fox News is running the media interference for them.

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

Donald Trump's History of Inciting Violence

Terrifying. #DumpTrump

Posted by MoveOn.org on Sunday, March 13, 2016

Tea And Trumpets: How Fox News Covers Protesters Depends On Who They Are Protesting

Posted by on March 12, 2016 at 8:14 pm. 1 Comments :

Watching the noxious campaign of Donald Trump continue to devolve into ever deeper levels of assholery is becoming a greater challenge with every passing day. His embrace of hostile rhetoric and refusal to convincingly condemn the aggression of his minions is leading to easily predictable episodes of chaos and violence. There is a reason that he is the only candidate that is suffering these problems.

Donald Trump

Trump’s accomplice in this spread of acrimony is, not surprisingly, Fox News. The reports of the protests by Fox are characteristically unfair and acutely unbalanced. They rarely acknowledge that Trump is the instigator of the rancor that his followers have gleefully adopted. In fact, more often than not Fox portrays the protesters has initiating the violence. Never mind that there is no evidence whatsoever of that ever happening. What exactly did the folks at Fox think would happen when Trump told his followers that he would pay their legal fees if they were arrested for assaulting a protester? What did they think Trump was trying to convey when he said this:

“Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right? […] There used to be consequences. There are none anymore.”

And this:

“I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks. It’s true. … I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you.”

And that only scratches the surface (here are a bunch more). Trump could not be making it any clearer that he’s fond of the idea of physical altercations and that if you support him, you should be too. This is coming from someone who is now trying to pass himself off as a unifier. Before he can plausibly claim to being able to unite his party, or the country, or to make all the amazing deals he boasts about, shouldn’t he be able to settle his differences with these protesters? How on Earth would he ever be able to bring peace to the Middle East if he can’t bring it to Chicago?

It is in this environment that Fox News offers up perverse tales of peaceful demonstrators inviting the attacks that are waged on them. The Fox spin is that they are all engaged in a secret conspiracy to destroy the Trump Crusade by getting themselves beat up and arrested. Fox is actually theorizing that there is a plot afoot that is backed by evil and powerful puppet masters of the left. For instance, Fox anchor Doug McKelway prefaced a question to a guest this morning with this brazen bias:

“There have been suggestions that MoveOn.org is behind a lot of this orchestrated violence.”

First of all, there have been no suggestions of the sort by anyone but McKelway’s bosses at Fox News. Secondly, the baseless charge of “orchestrated violence” is posed falsely by Fox as if it were a matter of fact. Not only is it not factual, it’s a blatant lie that Fox deliberately inserted into the debate. The only thing here that is orchestrated is Fox’s defamation of the protesters.

As another example of their well-coordinated talking points, anchor Neil Cavuto implied, with no evidence, that Media Matters and George Soros were responsible for the Chicago protests. His guest, former GE CEO Jack Welch, added Bill Ayres and MoveOn to the mix of lefty conspirators. Then Welch said that “If we’re gonna have riots, we ought to have riots aimed at what Bernie Sanders has to say about tearing our country down.” To which Cavuto replied “Yeah, you’re right.”

So Fox is not attempting to calm down the rhetoric at all, Instead, they are trying to sustain it, but shift the victims to the side that they don’t like. This is Fox’s way of telling their viewers to show up at a Sanders rally and start a riot. Note that Welch’s assertion that there have been riots already is utterly false, but that didn’t stop him from expressing his desire to starting some. Note also that the candidate that is most often tearing our country down is Donald Trump, who frequently says that the American dream is dead, and that America is a Hell hole, and that all of our leaders are stupid losers, and that the economy is a bubble that is about to burst, etc., etc.

It wasn’t long ago that Fox News considered protesters to be noble defenders of patriotism. Whenever there was a Tea Party rally, Fox was there to celebrate them as civic minded citizens who were fighting to restore their twisted version of the Constitution. The Tea Party was hailed as champions of freedom, despite the fact that they were actually a creation of the billionaire Koch brothers, with help from Fox News. And when they crashed public meetings by shouting down anyone with whom they disagreed, Fox cheered and brought them into the studio the next day for a slobbering interview.

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

So here’s the difference in how Fox News will cover protesters. If you’re wearing a tri-corner hat and carrying a Gadsden flag, Fox will devote countless hours of airtime to glorifying your efforts on behalf of God and country, even if you illegally seize government property and threaten to shoot law enforcement officers (i.e. the Bundy Klan). But if you deign to Occupy Wall Street or demonstrate against a bigoted, orange-haired narcissist with designs on an American dictatorship, Fox will smear you as a subversive who wants to turn America over to ISIS. And don’t forget, free speech is a right that is only available to ultra-rightists and conservative blowhards. It does not extend to people opposed to them. And if you attempt to exercise it you will be subject to slander and defamation by Fox News.

Reality TV Romance: The Meaning Of Sarah Palin’s Embrace Of Donald Trump

Posted by on January 19, 2016 at 2:54 pm. 5 Comments :

Confirming rumors that Sarah Palin might crawl out from under her frozen tundra to endorse Donald Trump, the big moment came today in a statement from the Trump campaign. For Trump this means that his campaign has now been validated by perhaps the most comically ignorant mainstream politician in decades. He must be so proud. [Update: video of Palin’s endorsement speech added below]

Donald Trump Sarah Palin

Trump getting an endorsement from Sarah Palin is a fairly predictable turn of events. After all, both Trump and Palin are former reality TV characters who pretended to represent an entirely scripted version of their cartoon personas. Both of them are unashamed of displaying rank idiocy (and then defending it). Both of them are flagrantly racist, homophobic, and itching to declare war on any little country they think looked at us funny. Both of them support unfettered proliferation of guns in America, where more than 30,000 people die every year from gun violence. They even refuse to support legislation that would prohibit terrorists from getting guns. Both of them have a visceral hatred for President Obama and an unsettling infatuation with Vladimir Putin (Trump thinks they’d be best buds and Palin is hot for his bear-wrestling manliness).

Left in the lurch is poor, old, and universally disliked, Ted Cruz. Palin had previously backed Cruz’s senatorial campaign and they have been fast friends ever since. They also share a spiritual bond that Donald Trump, with his blatantly irreligious posturing, cannot possibly match. But getting jilted has inflamed Cruz to caution Palin that her endorsement of Trump would tarnish her reputation. Assuming for the sake of argument that Palin has a reputation capable of being tarnished, the gist of Cruz’s warning is that an association with Trump is a dirty affair. And Cruz knows dirty affairs as evidenced by his proud acceptance of an endorsement from Palin pal Phil Robertson of the Duck Dynasty (in the most bizarre political video I’ve ever seen).

The question now is: What can Trump expect to get from a Palin endorsement? Palin is a has-been political loser who resorted to trashy TV in order to salvage her floundering career and advance her greed and lust for attention. She was fired from Fox News (twice). Following that humiliation she launched an online video channel that went offline less than a year later due to lack of interest. Then she announced, with great fanfare, her hosting of a nightly program on the wingnut fringe “One America News” network. That lasted less than a dozen episodes. Notably, the second to the last episode was an interview of Donald Trump.

Palin’s most recent endorsement prior to this was of France’s Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the leader of the openly fascist Front National Party (she lost). Palin praised Le Pen as the “It Girl” on whom she has a crush. Palin, Le Pen, and Trump all share the same ideology that advocates deporting all them evil foreigners, carpet bombing civilians, and imposing Christianity as the mandatory faith of their hoped-for theocracy. Then Palin could implement her plan to force everyone in the country to “speak American.”

And what’s in it for Palin? Well, Trump is easily the biggest spectacle in the GOP circus. Palin undoubtedly hopes that hitching her rickety wagon to Trump will get it rolling again. She has proven repeatedly that her primary motivations have always been promoting herself. Never mind that she is the mother of a special needs child who is embracing a man who callously mocked a reporter with physical disabilities. That’s not as important as getting a pitchman like Trump to raise your profile and hawk your books. Cruz would not be nearly as useful from that marketing perspective. Also, Cruz would not likely consider Palin for a cabinet post in his administration, while Trump has already speculated on it, specifically mentioning Energy Secretary.

What’s more, Palin’s base of support has dwindled severely. When was the last time anyone made reference to the Tea party in anything other than a joke? Palin even had a brutal falling out with Glenn Beck, who recently said that “I don’t care what Sarah Palin says any more. Sarah Palin has become a clown. I’m embarrassed that I was once for Sarah Palin. Honestly, I’m embarrassed.” Coming from someone that once described himself as a “rodeo clown,” that’s pretty scathing.

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

The farce surrounding Trump’s candidacy just keeps getting more bizarre. His pathological lies (see the Trump Bullshitopedia), his noxious bigotry, his unabashed ignorance, are setting new lows for a Republican Party that was already underwater. And now he’s excited about an endorsement from a washed up grifter whose public profile has been in a steep free fall for the past few years. She didn’t help John McCain get to the White House at the height of her popularity, so there’s no reason to think she would be much help to Trump, the guy who insulted McCain as not being a war hero because he had been captured and held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. And there’s something else That Trump and Palin have in common, a complete lack of any sense of loyalty.

Here’s a heaping serving of Palin’s Word Salad.

[Addendum:] Last night Sarah Palin’s eldest son, Track, was arrested for punching his girlfriend and brandishing a gun while drunk. So while her son was facing multiple violent criminal charges in Wassilla, the Grizzly Mama was partying with Trump. It’s funny that a woman whose son is a divorced domestic abuser, and whose daughter has two out-of-wedlock kids, is constantly lecturing other people about family values.

Republicans Launch Proxy Impeachment Proceedings Against Obama

Posted by on October 29, 2015 at 8:03 am. 30 Comments :

There is a nasty streak of vengeance that runs through the Republican Party. They have been lusting for an opportunity to impeach President Obama since the day that he was inaugurated. It didn’t matter what excuse they drummed up, it could have been over anything from Fast and Furious, to the IRS, to ObamaCare, to immigration, to executive orders, to his birthplace. They even alleged that – and this is all too real – Obama was actually trying to impeach himself.

Impeach Obama

Having been denied their heart’s deepest desire, an actual reason to impeach Obama, the GOP went after administration stand-ins for the President. One of those was Lois Lerner, who was running the IRS Exempt Organizations Unit during a period when it was alleged that they were improperly targeting conservative applicants. There was never any evidence to prove the allegations, and last week the Justice Department announced that they had closed the investigation and would not be bringing any charges. They said that “We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.”

In response to the DOJ’s determination, Republicans sought to lash out any convenient victim who might be available. Someone had to suffer their wrath if it wasn’t Lerner. So Jason Chaffetz (R-Wacko), chairman of the House Oversight (Overreach?) Committee, and his Republican Retributionists, have introduced a resolution to begin impeachment proceedings of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. The resolution accuses Koskinen of making false statements under oath and failing to comply with a subpoena.

This a curious persecution considering that Koskinen had nothing to do with the alleged targeting. He didn’t became IRS Commissioner until December of 2013, three years after the Tea Party’s whining about being scrutinized for improper political activity, of which they were clearly guilty. And back in the 2010 time frame, the IRS Commissioner was Douglas Shulman, an appointee of George W. Bush. Nevertheless, Koskinen is the target of opportunity, so the GOP is spewing their venom at him. They have determined that they need a scalp and they aren’t going home without trying at least once more.

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

This is just the latest in a string of partisan, expensive, and futile legislature abuse. The Republicans have already proven that they have no aptitude for governing, so they have adopted an agenda of hostility that relies on ludicrous hearings on Benghazi, Planned Parenthood, and now the impeachment of an IRS Commissioner. But make no mistake, all of these actions are thinly disguised swipes at President Obama. It is he that they wish they were impeaching, but they have even less justification for it than the phony scams they have already run. Even uber-conservative Fox News Yoda, Charles Krauthammer, is less than enthused with the GOP’s latest proxy attack on the President:

“This is not going to end well. Republicans in the Congress have shown that they have no ability to conduct successful investigations of this administration. Everything they have touched has failed or backfired, even Benghazi.”

If the Republicans go through with impeachment proceedings against Koskinen they will only embarrass themselves further. There is no case to be made against him, and their transparent animosity will reveal them for the partisan hate mongers that they are. Their visceral disgust for Obama has driven them to extremes that only make them more repugnant to the average American voter. And as much as it would be in their best interests to try to at least pretend to be sane, expect more craziness to come. They obviously can’t help themselves.

Donald Trump Is NOT Wildly Popular And Is Nothing Like Bernie Sanders

Posted by on August 13, 2015 at 4:20 pm. 5 Comments :

This campaign season is witnessing some of the most shallow analyses of the political landscape to ever be spun by the Perpetually Erroneous Pundit Squad. The constant repetition in the media of the non-existent dominance of Donald Trump’s phony candidacy is boxing out any rational examination of the progress of the primaries. But it is all as ephemeral as a soap bubble and just as easily burst.

Sideshow Donald Trump

Since the Fox News GOP debate, Trump’s standing in the polls has actually declined. He is still leading the other Republican contestants, but by smaller margins. And throughout what has been characterized as a phenomenon, Trump has never garnered the support of more than a small percentage of the electorate. For the most part, Trump has held a lead with about 20-25% of just the Republican voters in the polls. What most pundits fail to notice is that that means there are 75-80% of Republicans who are not supporting him. Since when is that an expression of massive, grassroots popularity? What’s more, he has consistently had the highest unfavorables of any candidate, Republican or Democratic.

The only reason that Trump is ahead of his rivals now is that there are so many of them. The sheer quantity of non-Trump candidates disperses voters so that none of them can accumulate enough support to rise above the batshit insane constituency that Trump has managed to sew up. Once the field begins to narrow, support will migrate to the stronger candidates who have the endurance to last beyond a couple of primaries. When there are only two or three other candidates they will all be beating Trump, if he is even still in the race.

The press likes to inject explanations for Trump’s fake acclaim that generally takes the position that the American people are angry and that Trump’s barbarian persona appeals to those malcontents. However, the public is no more angry than in past election cycles that have seen the rise of protest candidates like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader and, more recently, the annoying and ignorant bitchiness of the Tea Party. And like Trump, they have all failed to ignite more than the same small contingent of kvetchers. It is the same crowd who cling to the belief that Obama is the anti-Christ.

Adding to the journalistic malpractice that characterizes the Trump coverage, is the suggestion that Bernie Sanders is the progressive version of Trump. What unadulterated bull. Trump actually is an angry, visionless loudmouth who attracts the blind devotion of the dimwitted rabble who are equally irate. Sanders, on the other hand, isn’t angry, he’s passionate. He is offering a positive agenda of detailed policy proposals on the economy, social justice, foreign affairs, the environment, Social Security, and health care. That’s the difference between Sanders, an affirmative reformer, and Trump, an opportunistic blowhard. And Sanders has also proven that he has the sort of broad-based support that Trump has never been able to muster, even after receiving millions of dollars worth of free airtime on Fox News. In recent polls Sanders is beating Trump head-to-head by twenty points.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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The foregoing notwithstanding, we can expect the media to continue their pitifully hollow presentations of current events. The question is whether they are doing it because they are too lame to figure out the obvious reasons for what is unfolding, or because they are addicted to the ratings they enjoy when they play along with the hype of a celebrity candidacy. If they were honest they would just start pushing for a “Draft Kim Kardashian” movement and quit pretending that Trump’s campaign is anything different.